Frontera NorteSur April 2002

Raúl Ramírez Baena, the head of Derechos Humanos y Protección Ciudadana del Estado de Baja California (the Baja California Office of Human Rights and Citizen Protection), said that he is hesitant to believe that the cartel is finished. According to Ramírez, Ramón and Benjamín were expendable and their loss is not a mortal blow to the organization.

An article in the Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario, quotes unnamed military intelligence sources as saying that Arellano Félix cartel may split into "minicartels." One could be led by one of the other Arellano Félix brothers, Francisco Xavier. Another could be led by Fabián Martínez González who authorities allege has been the Tijuana cartel's money launderer.

Jesús Blancornelas, director of the Tijuana weekly Zeta and an expert on drug trafficking issues, stated that cartels are like businesses: if the president dies or is fired, a new one is appointed the next day. "It's the same with the cartels," he said.

In 1997, Blancornelas survived, with serious wounds, an attack by hitmen. His driver and one of the hitmen were killed in the attack. Blancornelas attributes the attack to the Arellano Félix cartel.

Source: El Diario, March 17, 2002. Article by Ricardo Ravelo.

Benjamín Arellano, Alleged Tijuana Drug Boss, Captured

Benjamín Arellano Félix, the alleged head of the Arellano Félix drug cartel, also known as the Tijuana cartel, was arrested at a home in Puebla, Puebla on Saturday, March 9, 2002.

Benjamin, along with his brothers Ramón, Eduardo, Javier and Francisco, head what the US Drug Enforcement Administration says is one of the world's largest and most violent drug organizations. The group allegedly imports 25% of the cocaine that arrives in the US each year.

Benjamín Arellano has been held at the Las Palmas maximum security facility in Mexico since March 9.

Benjamín Arellano told Mexican officials that his brother Ramón Arellano did die in a February 10 shooting incident in Mazatlán.

Initially, there were questions about Ramón Arellano's death because it appeared that he had changed his identity and carried false identification. Also, just hours after the shooting, someone went to the morgue and claimed the body that Mexican officials believed was Ramón Arellano's. This person then had the body cremated.

Mexican drug officials have since confirmed Ramón Arellano's death. However, while the DEA is comfortable with Mexico's announcement, it is waiting for DNA testing results to come back before confirming his death, according to DEA Spokesperson Will Glasty.

""This is a great day for law enforcement, the Mexican Government, and citizens of the US," said Administrator Asa Hutchinson on March 9. "I am ecstatic with the Mexican Government's initiative and its continued cooperation with matters of such great importance. We will continue our cooperative efforts until all chief members of this notorious organization are brought to justice."

The US announced quickly that it would seek to extradite Benjamín Arellano. However, Mexico has already said that it will first prosecute Benjamín Arellano at home. Later, Mexico will allow for the temporary extradition of Benjamín Arellano to the US. After he has stood trial in the US, Benjamín Arellano will be returned to Mexico to finish his sentence in that country, according to the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario.

Also according to El Diario, Benjamín Arellano bought a home for 2.4 million pesos (approximately US$250,000) in Puebla's La Escondida neighborhood. The house was purchased under the name of Manuel Treviño Arredondo. He was living there with his wife, son and his son's wife at the time of his arrest by a special Army unit.

In an interview, Guadalupe González, La Escondida's administrator, said that Benjamín Arellano was a normal person that paid his dues on time, took walks, said hello and lived a quiet life. She also said that she never saw him carry a weapon. However, she did say that he would travel for two or three weeks at a time and that someone would come by to feed his dog.

Because of fears that rival drug organizations may move in on what was previously Arellano Félix territory, police in three states--Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Baja California--are on alert for the breakout of a drug war. Police officials are warning citizens to stay away from bars, restaurants and other places where people have been killed in drug violence in past years.

Source: El Diario, March 10 & March 12, 2002.

Cut in Drug Flow Sparks Weekend Prison Riot in Juárez, One Prisoner Dead

More than 500 inmates rioted at a prison near Ciudad Juárez on Saturday, March 23. One prisoner, 35 year old Sergio Arturo Madrid Herrera, was killed by a bullet fired by a law-enforcement agent. The bullet struck Madrid in the back of the head, according to state law enforcement officials who are investigating Madrid's death.

In their attempt to quell the riot, 44 prisoners were sent by prison officials from the Cd. Juárez-area prison, known as the Cereso, to a similar facility about 250 miles south near Chihuahua City.

The head of the prison, Luis Arturo Barragán González, was fired from his job and is being investigated for links to drug sales that take place in the facility, according to Guillermo Dowell Delgado, a Cd. Juárez city official.

El Diario, a Cd. Juárez newspaper, attributed the riot to the prison administration's decision to stop the flow of drugs into the Cereso. According to the newspaper, inmates began rioting after some of them started to experience symptoms of physical withdrawal from drugs.

Sergio Gallardo, a family member of one of the inmates, said that prisoners "have always had drugs both inside and outside, I don't know why they would take them away now."

A mother of one of the inmates told El Diario that the riot was the fault of prison officials because, "They get the inmates addicted to drugs and then they take the crap away from them."

A number of police units in anti-riot gear entered the prison to restore order. Describing their tactics, one journalist wrote that he saw a dozen prisoners with their hands handcuffed behind them and face down on the floor. When the drugged inmates could not stand up to form a line, one agent went up to all the prisoners and sprayed their faces with tear gas and punched them before leaving.

That the men had already received drugs is possible, according to the words of one witness. Jovita
Morales was inside the prison visiting her brother when the riot began. She said that the prisoners
started pulling down a fence to protest the lack of drugs.

Morales said that guards then began throwing little packets of drugs to the prisoners. Once they
were high and sedated, she said, city police entered the Cereso and began beating prisoners in front of the visitors. They were stripped, handcuffed and beaten again, according to Morales.

Source: El Diario, March 24 & 25, 2002.

Mass Firings Anticipated in BC Law Enforcement

In an editorial for the El Mexicano newspaper, print and radio journalist Martín Borchardt writes that the Baja California Secretary of Security, Bernardo Martínez, has confirmed that many State Police and Méxicali and Tijuana police will be fired from their law-enforcement positions. Among those let go will be high-ranking police officers, states Borchardt.

These firings will be done on the basis that the agents no longer have the trust of public officials. This is a common reason for termination of employment in Mexican law enforcement.

Borchardt says that the firings will be announced at the same time at both the city and state levels.

This cleaning out of BC law enforcement will also serve as a preamble to the meeting between Presidents Fox and Bush next week, says Borchardt.

Federal and state sources have informed Borchardt that many high law-enforcement positions will open up in the next few days. Borchardt's sources state that many police chiefs will flee, disappear or resign because they know that mass firings are in the works. Other people will leave law enforcement because they are worried about what Benjamín Arrellano Félix might reveal, writes Borchardt.

Benjamín Arrellano Félix, who is considered by the DEA to be the leader of the Arrellano Félix drug cartel, was arrested last weekend and is being held in Mexico.

Source: El Mexicano, March 13, 2002. Source Martín Borchardt.

Personnel Changes in Chihuahua Attorney General's Office May Affect Investigation of Juárez Serial Killing Cases

Less than a week after a new assistant attorney general was appointed for the part of Chihuahua that includes Ciudad Juárez, Zulema Bolívar García, the special investigator for women's murders, resigned from her position on Friday, March 1, 2002.

Bolívar told the Cd. Juárez newspaper El Diario that she resigned for personal reasons. Bolívar was special investigator since late July, 2001. She will now teach full time in the University of Ciudad Juárez School of Social Work, she told the newspaper.

Suly Ponce Prieto, the previous special investigator for women's murders, also resigned from her position as the general coordinator for the Ministerio Público in Northern Chihuahua. El Diario reported that it learned Ponce resigned because she was not named to the position of assistant attorney general.

Elfego Bencomo López, the new assistant attorney general for Northern Chihuahua, replaces José Manuel Ortega Aceves who had been in the position since August 2001. Ortega is now in another position with the Attorney General's Office.

Bencomo was identified by El Diario as a law professor and the former director of the University of Ciudad Juárez School of Law.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office told El Diario that Bencomo never asked the women to resign and he had yet to accept the women's resignations because he wants to speak with them first. However, both women were apparently cleaning out their offices on Friday, according to the newspaper.

No one has been named yet to replace either women.

Cd. Juárez women's organizations reacted to the news of the resignation by criticizing both Bolívar and Ponce.

Esther Chávez Cano, the director of Casa Amiga, said that a criminal investigation should be launched into Ponce's treatment of victims' families when she was special investigator.

About Bolívar, Chávez said she was not experienced enough for the job.

Marisela Ortiz Rivera, a member of "Return Our Daughters Home," said that the investigation into the Cd. Juárez women's murders has always lacked the will necessary to solve the crimes.

In other news, Dinorah Gutiérrez Mata, a 24 year old Cd. Juárez women who was reported missing by her family since February 25, has since then contacted her family.

A spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office said that Gutiérrez bought a bus ticket for Guanajuato after a fight with her boyfriend. However, family members say that that they still do not know where she is at the present time.

Gutiérrez's case has opened up a debate in Cd. Juárez about whether women should be fined if they run away from home without telling anyone and a costly investigation is launched.

Source: El Diario, February 28 & March 2, 2002. Article by Armando Rodríguez. El Diario, March 3, 2002. El Diario, March 4, 2002. Article by Gabriela Minjáres.

Drug Rehab in BC Prisons

In the Baja California state prison known as "El Pueblito," 128 inmates graduated from the Segunda Oportunidad (Second Chance) drug rehabilitation program on Sunday, February 24, 2002.

According to Joy Westrum, the director of Segunda Oportunidad, the program has been in existence for one year and has graduated more than 2,000 people.

A prison official said that approximately 60% of incoming prisoners are drug users and this is one reason why rehabilitation programs are so important. The official also mentioned that prison drug use is a real problem that allows addicts to continue with their habit while they are incarcerated.

Within the next three to four months, Segunda Oportunidad will be offered in the El Hongo state prison, the official said.

Source: Frontera (Tijuana), February 25, 2002. Article by Ernesto Alvarez.