 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2006 
Mexico to Request Extradition of Drug Gang Boss
 Reuters
| | This image provide by the Department of Justice shows drug kingpin, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, in DEA custody as he arrives in San Diego Thursday Aug. 17, 2006. Arellano Felix pleaded not guilty to federal charges of moving tons of cocaine and marijuana along the California-Mexico border. (AP/Department of Justice) |
Mexico will ask the United States to extradite Javier Arellano Felix, the Mexican drug cartel boss captured by U.S. agents this week, the attorney general's office said late this week.
Arellano Felix - leader of one of Mexico's most feared cartels - was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard, along with 10 other people believed to be part of his organization, on a ship off the coast of La Paz, Mexico.
"The Mexican authorities have the legal obligation, and we are already doing it, to request the extradition of Francisco Javier Arellano Feliz so he also answers for crimes committed in our country," Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said in a statement.
Arellano Felix, nicknamed "El Tigrillo" (The Wildcat), is wanted in Mexico for murder, possession of illegal weapons and organized crime.
He was taken to San Diego this week to face U.S. charges of racketeering, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The Arellano Felix family gang was once Mexico's most powerful and feared drug cartel, running a vast smuggling operation out of the gritty border city of Tijuana.
It lost some of its power in 2002, when its enforcer, Ramon Arellano Felix, was killed in a shootout with police and his brother, Benjamin, the gang's mastermind, was arrested.
The family continued to do business, however, and cut deals with the Gulf cartel in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
Mexico has intensified its war on drugs crime under President Vicente Fox. There has been a savage wave of killings along the U.S. border and in some Pacific resorts as gangs battle for control of the multibillion dollar cocaine, marijuana and amphetamine trade.
Cabeza de Vaca said investigators were hunting for other cartel members in Tijuana and the nearby port of Ensenada, in the border state of Baja California. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us