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Colombian drug cartels would pay shipping charges to the Arellano Felix cartel as well as pass along 50 percent of their load. In exchange, the Mexican cartel would set up and maintain airstrips to allow transportation of the wholesale drugs into Mexico, arrange for the drugs to cross into the lucrative U.S. marketplace and establish a distribution network there, Speziale said.
Organization (AFO), often referred to as the Tijuana Cartel, is one of the
most powerful and aggressive drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico; it is undeniably the most violent. More than any other major trafficking organization from Mexico, this organization extends its tentacles directly from high-echelon figures in the law enforcement and judicial systems in Mexico to street-level individuals in United States cities. The AFO is responsible for the transportation, importation and distribution of multi-ton quantities of cocaine, marijuana, as well as large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine, into the United States from Mexico. The AFO operates primarily in the Mexican states of Sinaloa (their birth place), Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, and Baja California South and North. From Baja, the drugs enter California, the primary point of embarkation into the United States distribution network.
most powerful and aggressive drug trafficking organizations operating from Mexico; it is undeniably the most violent. More than any other major trafficking organization from Mexico, this organization extends its tentacles directly from high-echelon figures in the law enforcement and judicial systems in Mexico to street-level individuals in United States cities. The AFO is responsible for the transportation, importation and distribution of multi-ton quantities of cocaine, marijuana, as well as large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine, into the United States from Mexico. The AFO operates primarily in the Mexican states of Sinaloa (their birth place), Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, and Baja California South and North. From Baja, the drugs enter California, the primary point of embarkation into the United States distribution network.
The ARELLANO family, composed of seven brothers and four sisters, inherited the organization from Miguel Angel FELIX-Gallardo upon his incarceration in Mexico in 1989 for his complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. Alberto Benjamin ARELLANO-Felix assumed leadership of the family structured criminal enterprise and provides a businessman's approach to the management of drug trafficking operations.
Ramon Eduardo ARELLANO-Felix, considered the most violent brother, organizes and coordinates protection details over which he exerts absolute control. The AFO maintains well armed and well-trained security forces, described by Mexican enforcement officials as paramilitary in nature, which include international mercenaries as advisors, trainers and members. Ramon ARELLANO's responsibilities consist of the planning of murders of rival drug leaders and those Mexican law enforcement officials not on their payroll. Also targeted for assassination are those AFO members who fall out of favor with the AFO leadership or simply are suspected of collaborating with law enforcement officials. He oversees and directs the recruitment of enforcers and hit teams. Enforcers are often hired from violent street gangs in cities and towns in both Mexico and the United States in the belief that these gang members are expendable. They are dispatched to assassinate targeted individuals and to send a clear message to those who attempt to utilize the Mexicali/Tijuana corridor without paying the area transit tax demanded by the AFO trafficking domain.
The AFO also maintains complex communications centers in several major cities in Mexico to conduct electronic espionage and counter surveillance measures against law enforcement entities. The organization employs radio scanners and equipment capable of intercepting both hard line and cellular phones to ensure the security of AFO operations. In addition to technical equipment, the AFO maintains caches of sophisticated automatic weaponry secured from a variety of international sources.
In May 1993, according to Mexican authorities, the group attempted to assassinate a rival trafficker, Joaquin GUZMAN-Loera, at the Guadalajara Airport. During the ensuing gun battle, Cardinal Posadas Ocampo was accidentally murdered as he rode through the airport in a vehicle similar to that of the intended target. As many as six gang members involved in the shoot-out were Mexican Americans from a San Diego street gang called "Logan Calle 30," which had been recruited as bodyguards for the ARELLANO-Felix hierarchy. Another example of the group's violence occurred in June 1994 when they set off a bomb at the Camino Real Hotel in Guadalajara. The intended target was a rival trafficker who was hosting a party for his 15-year-old daughter. Two men were killed and 15 others wounded. More recently, on September 14, 1996 MFJP Comandante Ernesto IBARRA-Santes and two Tijuana based MFJP Agents were shot and killed in Mexico City. Comandante IBARRA had recently assumed the duties of Subdelegado of the Procuraduria General De La Republica in Tijuana, Baja California/Norte.
A Joint Task Force composed of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been established in San Diego, California to target the AFO; the Task Force is investigating AFO operations in southern California and related regional investigations which track drug transportation, distribution and money laundering activities of the AFO throughout the United States. The ARELLANO-Felix organization is based in Tijuana and controls the smuggling of cocaine, marijuana and, more recently, methamphetamine across the border to California. One brother, Francisco, is in jail while two other brothers, Benjamin and Ramon, continue to operate. Ramon is wanted on drug and weapons charges in Mexico.
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