Tijuana Cartel

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Tijuana Cartel

In	Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
Territory	In Mexico: Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa In the United States: California and Arizona
Ethnicity	Mexican
Membership	Estimated to have well over 1,000 foot soldiers. Command and control elements are much more limited.
Criminal activities	Bribery, cocaine transportation, cocaine wholesaling, contract killing, controls numerous plazas/drug trafficking corridors, drug trafficking, kidnapping, murder, and racketeering
Rivals	Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, Juárez Cartel.

The Tijuana Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Tijuana or Arellano-Félix Organization) is a Mexican drug trafficking cartel based in Tijuana, Baja California. It covers the northwestern part of Mexico and competes with three other major cartels: the Juárez Cartel of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and Navojoa, Sonora (center), the Gulf Cartel (east), and the Sinaloa Cartel of Culiacán, Sinaloa. The cartel has been described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico".^[1] The Tijuana Cartel was featured battling the rival Juárez Cartel in the 2000 motion picture Traffic.

Contents 1 Background 2 Organization 3 Activities 4 Captures and trial 5 See also 6 References

[edit] Background

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the founder of the Guadalajara Cartel was arrested in 1989. While incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico's major traffickers, maintaining his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the 1990s. At that point, his old organization broke up into two factions: the Tijuana Cartel led by his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, and the Sinaloa Cartel, run by former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, Adrián Gómez González and Joaquín Guzmán Loera El Chapo.

Currently, the majority of Mexico's smuggling routes are controlled by three key cartels: Gulf, Sinaloa and Tijuana —though Tijuana is the least powerful. The Tijuana cartel was further weakened in August 2006 when its chief, Javier Arellano Félix, was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard on a boat off the coast of Southern California. Mexican army troops also were sent to Tijuana in January 2007 in an operation to restore order to the border city and root out corrupt police officers, who mostly were cooperating with the Tijuana cartel. As a result of these efforts, the Tijuana cartel is unable to project much power outside of its base in Tijuana.^[2]

[edit] Organization

The Arellano Félix family was initially composed of seven brothers and four sisters, who inherited the organization from Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo upon his incarceration in Mexico in 1989 for his complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. Although the brothers' arrest are blows to the Arellano Felix cartel, it did not dismantle the organization which currently is led by Eduardo's nephew, Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano.^[3][4]

The Tijuana Cartel has infiltrated the Mexican law enforcement and judicial systems and is directly involved in street-level trafficking within the United States. This criminal organization is responsible for the transportation, importation, and distribution of multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana, as well as large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine.^[5]

The organization has a reputation for extreme violence. Ramón Arellano Félix ordered a hit which resulted in the mass murder of 18 people in Ensenada, Baja California, on September 17, 1998. Ramón was eventually killed in a gun battle with police at Mazatlán, Sinaloa, on February 10, 2002.

The Arellano Félix family has seven brothers:

• Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix (born 24 October 1949) Captured & released
• Benjamín Arellano Félix (born 3 December 1952) - Captured
• Carlos Arellano Félix (believed to be born 20 August 1955) Captured
• Eduardo Arellano Félix (born 11 October 1956), - Captured and being held pending extradition to the United States
• Ramón Eduardo Arellano Félix (born 31 August 1964) - Deceased, shot by police in 2002
• Luis Fernando Arellano Félix (believed to be born 26 January 1966)
• Francisco Javier Arellano Félix (born 11 December 1969) - Captured

They also have four sisters, where Alicia and Enedina are most active in the cartel's affairs. The family inherited the organization from their uncle Miguel Ángel Félix upon his incarceration. Eduardo Arellano Félix was captured by the Mexican Army after a shootout in Tijuana, Baja California, on October 26, 2008;^[3] he had been the last of the Arellano Félix brothers at large. According to a Mexican official, Enedina's son, Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano, has taken over the cartel's operations.^[6]

[edit] Activities

The Tijuana cartel is present in at least 15 Mexican states with important areas of operation in Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, and Ensenada in Baja California and in parts of Sinaloa.^[7] After the death in 1997 of the Juárez Cartel's Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Tijuana Cartel attempted to gain a foothold in Sonora.^[1]

Fourteen Mexican drug gang members were killed and eight others were injured in a gun battle in Tijuana near the U.S. border on Saturday, April 26, 2008 that was one of the bloodiest shootouts in the narco-war between the Tijuana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.

[edit] Captures and trial

In October 1997, a retired U.S. Air Force C-130A that was sold to the airline Aeropostal Cargo de México, was seized by Mexican federal officials, who alleged that the aircraft had been used to haul drugs for the cartel up from Central and South America, as well as around the Mexican interior. Investigators had linked the airline's owner, Jesús Villegas Covallos, to Ramón Arellano Félix.^[1]

On August 14, 2006, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix was apprehended by the United States Coast Guard off the coast of Baja California Sur.

[edit] See also

• Beltrán-Leyva Cartel‎‎
• Teodoro Garcia Simental
• Gulf Cartel
• Juárez Cartel
• Mérida Initiative
• Mexican Drug War
• Narcotrafficking in Colombia
• Los Negros
• War on Drugs
• Los Zetas

v • d • e Mexican Drug War (2006–present) Federal forces: Mexican Army • Mexican Air Force • Mexican Navy • Federal Investigations Agency • Federal Police • Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez • Beltrán-Leyva Cartel Founders: Marcos Arturo Beltrán Leyva • Alfredo Beltrán Leyva  • Mario Alberto Beltrán Leyva  • Carlos Beltrán Leyva  • Héctor Beltrán Leyva  • La Familia Cartel Founders: Nazario Moreno González • Carlos Rosales Mendoza • José de Jesús Méndez Vargas • Julio César Godoy Toscano • Enrique Plancarte • Arnoldo Rueda Medina • Servando Gómez Martínez • Dionicio Loya Plancarte • Rafael Cedeño Hernández • Gulf Cartel Founders: Juan Nepomuceno Guerra • Juan García Abrego  • Current leaders: Osiel Cárdenas Guillén • Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén • Jorge Eduardo Costilla • Juárez Cartel Founders: Pablo Acosta Villarreal • Amado Carrillo Fuentes • Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo • Rafael Caro Quintero • Miguel Caro Quintero • Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo • Current leaders: Vicente Carrillo Fuentes • Juan Pablo Ledesma • Sinaloa Cartel (Armed wing: Los Negros) Founders: Pedro Avilés Pérez • Héctor Luis Palma Salazar • Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo • Current leaders: Joaquín Guzmán Loera • Ismael Zambada García • Ignacio Coronel Villarreal • Édgar Valdéz Villarreal (Los Negros)  • Teodoro García Simental • Juan José Esparragoza Moreno • Tijuana Cartel Founders: Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo • Current leaders: Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano • Ramón Arellano Félix • Eduardo Arellano Félix • Francisco Javier Arellano Félix • Edgardo Leyva Escandon • Los Zetas Founders: Arturo Guzmán Decena • Jesús Enrique Rejón Águila • Jaime González Durán • Heriberto Lazcano • Miguel Treviño Morales Current leaders: Heriberto Lazcano • Miguel Treviño Morales  • See also Timeline of the Mexican Drug War • Mérida Initiative • Narco submarine • Project Gunrunner • War on Drugs • Operation Solare • Operation Xcellerator • Project Coronado •

[edit] References