Mexico Trucker Online

Extradition possible for Arellano Félix

MEXICO CITY – Drug kingpin Benjamín Arellano Félix, whose Tijuana cartel once supplied 40 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States, has been sentenced to 22 years in Mexico’s toughest maximum-security prison, the Mexican federal Attorney General’s Office said yesterday.

Arellano, 54, was sentenced Monday by a federal judge on organized crime and drug trafficking charges. In April, he received a five-year sentence for possession of an AK-47 and a .38-caliber pistol during his March 2002 arrest in a home he shared with his family in Puebla state.

Monday’s sentencing concludes the Mexican government’s case against Arellano and opens the possibility of extradition to San Diego, where he was indicted by a federal grand jury in December 2003 on drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering charges, law enforcement sources said.

U.S. law enforcement officials praised the Mexican government’s aggressive campaign against Arellano and his brothers, who are accused of running one of the most powerful and deadly cartels on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In January, the U.S. government presented 27 boxes of evidence against Benjamín Arellano to Mexican authorities to request his extradition.

But Mexican attorney Americo Delgado de la Peña, who heads Arellano’s defense team, said the extradition case is so legally flawed that it will not withstand a Supreme Court challenge.

“The case against him is extremely weak,” Delgado said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Benjamín Arellano Félix will not be extradited.”

Arellano was “serene” when the judge handed down the 22-year sentence on Monday, Delgado said. “He took it calmly.”

Delgado, who successfully defended Arellano against charges that he orchestrated the 1993 slaying of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan José Posada Ocampos, said he will appeal Monday’s sentence. “They can condemn him to 20 years, to 40, 50, 100 years, to any amount of years they want, but it is illegal because there is no evidence against him in Mexico, either,” Delgado said.

Since President Felipe Calderón took office in December, his government has stepped up the extradition of major traffickers.

A month after Calderón’s inauguration, Mexico extradited drug kingpins Osiel Cárdenas, head of the Gulf Cartel, and Héctor Palma, former head of the Sinaloa cartel, who is under indictment in San Diego. The government also extradited three men who worked for the Arellano Félix cartel.

Mexico has extradited 64 accused criminals to the United States this year, breaking last year’s record of 63, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico said. “It’s another sign that the cooperation between Mexico and the United States is going forward, not backward,” a U.S. law enforcement source said.

Since 2002, four of the five Arellano brothers accused of running the cartel have been captured or killed.

Still, law enforcement on both sides of the border say the Arellano Félix family has fended off rival cartels in the lucrative Tijuana-San Diego drug corridor. “They’re not as strong as they once were,” the law enforcement source said, “but as long as the Arellanos have a presence in Tijuana, they control the plaza.”