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 News from Around the Americas | November 2007 
Cartel Kingpin Gets Life Sentence
 Onell R. Soto - San Diego Union-Tribune
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| | U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents escort Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, to a waiting vehicle at Coast Guard station San Diego in this Aug. 2006, file photo in San Diego. Felix received the mandatory sentence of life in prison in San Diego for running a notoriously violent cartel that bears his family's name. (AP/Denis Poroy) |
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and with his ankles chained together, one of the world's most feared drug kingpins was led off to prison yesterday after a judge sentenced him to life for his role in the global drug trade.
“I would like to ask forgiveness from all those people on both sides of the border whom I have affected by my wrongful decisions and criminal conduct,” Francisco Javier Arellano Félix said in a letter read in court by a lawyer.
“Please forgive me,” he said. “If I had the power to change and undo the things that I have done, I would.”
After lawyer David Bartick finished reading the letter, U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns asked Arellano if he had anything to add.
“That is all,” Arellano said through an interpreter.
It was a subdued ending to one of the most violent criminal careers in a border region wracked by drug violence.
The cartel that Arellano headed when he was arrested on a sport fishing boat off Baja California Sur dominated the drug trade between Mexico and California for the past two decades.
Weakened by Arellano's arrest, what's left of the cartel is in a bloody fight with other criminal groups for control of drug traffic in the San Diego-Tijuana region.
When he pleaded guilty in September, Arellano admitted that in the four years he headed the cartel, and for many more before that, he orchestrated slayings, torture, money laundering and bribery.
He said he and his minions moved hundreds of tons of cocaine and marijuana, made hundreds of millions of dollars, bribed police and soldiers, and killed informants, potential witnesses and law enforcement officials.
“Your family name will live in infamy,” the judge said. “It's a record of callousness. It's a record of cruelty. Today is the day of accounting for all those things.”
The plea agreement calling for a life prison sentence was reached after months of negotiation, said Bartick, the defense attorney.
Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was considering whether to pursue the death penalty when Arellano offered to plead guilty to organized crime and money laundering charges – only if his life was spared.
The plea, Bartick said outside court, “was in the best interest of all parties and truly in the best interest of our community.”
With an investigation spanning back to the 1980s and evidence of scores of slayings, drug deals and financial transactions, the trial was shaping up to be one of the longest and costliest in San Diego history.
Having it end with a plea and a life sentence for Arellano is “extremely gratifying,” said Laura Duffy, a federal prosecutor who has worked on taking down the cartel for 12 years.
Federal agents, working with law enforcement from local jurisdictions, the state and in Mexico, started with underlings years ago, Duffy said.
Agents first went after people who transported the drugs, then after those who organized the shipments and so on up the line.
It wasn't easy work to finally get to a boss such as Arellano. “They're extremely well isolated and compartmentalized,” she said.
The big break came when agents secretly placed satellite-tracking equipment on the Dock Holiday, a 42-foot yacht used by cartel leaders.
Once the ship entered international waters, the Coast Guard swooped in and arrested those aboard, including Arellano.
It was a message to all those who traffic drugs across the border, said Dan Simmons, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“If we can get to the No. 1, we can get to all of you,” he said. “Now that work continues.”
Indeed, Duffy said federal prosecutors are expecting Mexico to soon extradite one of Arellano's brothers, Benjamín, as well as other members of the cartel in Mexican jails.
Investigators also are poring over accounts and other assets, as Arellano agreed to turn over $50 million, his share of the cartel's profits over the years. |
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