When federal drug agents raided a Lebanon man's property recently and confiscated some marijuana plants, they were demonstrating the practical impact of Oregon's medical marijuana law. Oregon law allows licensed "care-givers," as some pot growers are now defined, to grow up to seven plants for medicinal purposes. The feds say they carted away 105 plants from Travis Paulson's place in the mid-Willamette Valley, and they seem to have their doubts about the medicinal nature of the crop. That's no surprise. We have our doubts about the medicinal nature of the state law. [continues 113 words]
Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez, alleged lieutenant in the Arellano Felix Organization, could well become the first Mexican drug kingpin extradited by the government of Mexico for trial in the United States. The administration of former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo supported the U.S. extradition request for Paez and formally petitioned the Mexican Supreme Court to approve it. Zedillo's successor, President Vicente Fox, also is on record favoring extraditing Paez and other accused drug criminals wanted in the United States. Mexico's Supreme Court approved the Paez extradition in a 10-1 decision that found no constitutional objections. [continues 648 words]
Within the past year, two presidents of Mexico have vowed to break the Tijuana-based narcotics-trafficking cartel known as the Arellano Felix Organization and arrest its leaders. On this side of the border, U.S. law enforcement, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lists bringing the Arellanos to justice and combating their massive narcotics smuggling as top priorities. Yet, the Mexican presidents' announced deadlines for breaking the Tijuana cartel's power and apprehending its leaders come and go without effect. U.S. law enforcement, while achieving some successes against the AFO and helping Mexico to accomplish several others over the past year, has also failed to score anything close to a knockout blow. [continues 2167 words]
In a matter of months, both Mexico and the United States will inaugurate new presidents, bringing new governments to power in Mexico City and Washington. That will be an ideal time to reassess and rethink the efforts both countries are making against the metasticizing cancer of the narcotics trade. The two new presidents would do well to start with a sense of urgency. They should be able to agree that drug trafficking threatens both countries, if in different ways and to varying degrees. They should also see clearly enough that the supposed "war" against drugs is being lost on both sides of the border. [continues 938 words]
Among the most divisive drug-war frictions between the United States and Mexico is this grating fact: no major Mexican drug trafficker has ever been extradited to stand trial in the United States. Until that happens, Washington's annual certification that Mexico "has cooperated fully with the United States" in combating the international narcotics trade cannot possibly ring true. This explains the heightened focus on the case of Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez. A painstakingly detailed, six-count indictment of Paez by a federal grand jury in San Diego alleges that this scion of a wealthy Tijuana family is also a major drug trafficker and a principal lieutenant in the murderous Tijuana drug cartel known as the Arellano Felix Organization. [continues 1273 words]
This special edition of Insight examines the Arellano Felix Organization, the decade-long failure to shut it down, and what its defeat would require. Introduction: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n962/a01.html 'Silver Or Lead', Part 1 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n961/a06.html The Arellano Felix Organization Rules Tijuana By Ruthless Terror , Part 2 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n962/a02.html The Plaza, Part 3 http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n961/a03.html [continues 52 words]
Key Events And Dates In The History Of The Drug-trafficking Cartel Known As The Arellano Felix Organization: 1989: Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a kingpin among Mexico's major drug traffickers, is imprisoned. His empire is divided into the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel. The Arellano brothers, his former lieutenants, take the Tijuana operation. May 24, 1993: A bungled assassination attempt by Arellano cartel gunmen against rival drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera at the Guadalajara airport kills Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, whose car was reportedly mistaken for Guzman's. [continues 737 words]
Introduction Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo describes narcotics trafficking as the greatest threat to Mexico' s national security. A report produced by his own government warned that increasingly powerful drug cartels threaten Mexico' s political stability and, if left unchecked, could render Mexico ungovernable. Something close to that is already happening a mere 20 miles from downtown San Diego, just across the border in Tijuana: Two police chiefs assassinated by drug traffickers in six years, dozens of prosecutors and police investigators killed and a murder rate at least seven times that of San Diego. [continues 218 words]
Josee "Pepe" Patino Moreno, a special prosecuctor for the Mexican attorney general's elite anti-narcotics unit, and two fellow drug agents were running an hour late last April 10th for a scheduled meeting at a prosecutors' office in Tijuana. Patino had called ahead twice on his cellphone. "I'll be there in a minute," he said in the second call. He never made it. Patino's mangled body, together with those of special prosecutor Oscar Pompa Plaza and Mexican army captain Rafael Torres Bernal, was found a day and a half later. The three bodies lay near the wreck of Patino' s newly purchased Chevrolet Lumina 200 yards down the steep slope of a ravine along the mountain highway between Tecate and Mexicali. [continues 1862 words]
Bribery, Assassination Sabotage Mexico's Anti-drug Efforts About noon on Nov. 22, 1998, the wife and two children of drug cartel principal Eduardo Arellano Felix arrived at UCSD Medical Center's Regional Burn Center in San Diego. The woman, Sonia Martinez, her four-year-old daughter and six-week-old son had been badly burned that morning when a leaking propane barbecue cooker exploded at their home in Tijuana. Eduardo was burned, too, on the face and hands. But he chose not to risk arrest in the United States on whatever drug-trafficking charges might be pending against him. So he sought treatment in Mexico while sending his wife and children across the border to receive the best possible medical care. [continues 3282 words]
The Arellano brothers were nephews of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a major drug trafficker operating from his base in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. In 1989, Gallardo was imprisoned in Mexico for complicity in the 1985 kidnapping, torture and murder of U.S. DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. When Gallardo went to prison, his drug-trafficking empire was divided between his lieutenants. The Arellano brothers got the western part of Gallardo's territory and established their headquarters in Tijuana. That proved an ideal location from which to command the strategic "Plaza" and to monitor U.S. law enforcement, which the Arellanos regarded as the major threat to their operations. [continues 693 words]
The United States, Too, Could Do Much More To Break The Arellano Felix Cartel The federal government has no plan for bringing down the AFO (drug cartel) and capturing the Arellanos," says Charles G. La Bella, with an emphasis born of frustration. Were it otherwise, at least through last year, La Bella would have known. From December 1993 through June 1998, he was First Assistant United States Attorney in San Diego, chief of the office's criminal division and the principal deputy to U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin, the Justice Department's designated chief law enforcement officer on the Southwest Border. [continues 2146 words]
Tijuana Cartel Dominates Choice Route For Smugglers SAN YSIDRO -- "It's a boy," exults the U.S. Customs Service mechanic in mock celebration. The tire he has just pulled off a 1988 Isuzu Trooper II trying to enter the United States from Mexico at the San Ysidro Port of Entry yields hefty bundles of marijuana. The other three tires are all similarly stuffed with about 47 pounds each of large marijuana bricks. Estimated street value for this 189 pounds of dope -- about $114,000. Customs has the load, the vehicle and the driver all in custody. [continues 997 words]
