U.S. frees Tijuana drug boss after weeks

A convicted drug cartel boss has been freed on parole and returned to Mexico just weeks after he began serving a six-year U.S. prison sentence, U.S. and Mexican officials said Wednesday.

Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, 58 and the eldest of the brothers who ran the Tijuana cartel, was deported Tuesday and crossed to Ciudad Juarez from El Paso.

Arellano Felix was the boss of the Tijuana cartel when he was arrested in 1993 in Mexico and sentenced to 11 years for drug possession and using illegal weapons.

He remained in prison for two more years while authorities arranged his extradition to the U.S., where he was wanted for selling cocaine to an undercover agent. He pleaded guilty in June in San Diego.

He began serving his sentence in January and was paroled Feb. 1, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. A U.S. official said Arellano Felix received credit toward his U.S. sentence for time served while awaiting extradition in Mexico. Because his U.S. case dates to 1980, he was eligible for parole under laws on the books then, the official said. Since then, parole has been eliminated for those convicted of federal crimes.

Arellano Felix’s younger brothers, Francisco Javier and Benjamin, are behind bars in the U.S. and Mexico, respectively. Another brother, Ramon, was killed in a shootout with Mexican police in 2002, and a fifth, Francisco Eduardo, is at large.