Man Held in Miami May Be Fugitive in Slaying of Guadalajara Cardinal

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials were trying to determine Friday if a man being held by authorities in Miami is a fugitive Tijuana drug lord wanted in the murder of the Roman Catholic cardinal of Guadalajara.

Details remained sketchy about the reported arrest of Javier Arellano Felix, one of three fugitive Arellano brothers who run the Tijuana cartel. Officials said they could not confirm that Arellano had been arrested.

Mexican investigators received information Thursday from U.S. government officials and a Mexican press report that a man believed to be Arellano was in custody in Miami, according to Miguel Ponce Edmondson, the Mexican federal attorney general’s attache in Los Angeles. Ponce said Mexican officials are investigating whether the fugitive may have been arrested by a local agency.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI looked into similar reports Friday but found no such suspect being held by federal authorities in Miami, officials said.

Arellano is in his mid-20s and is known as “El Tigrillo” (The Little Tiger). He has eluded an international manhunt despite the joint efforts of Mexican agents and a special FBI-DEA task force based in San Diego. The Mexican government put a million-dollar price on the brothers’ heads after Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and six other people died in an airport shootout between the Arellanos and rival gangsters in May, 1993.

The Arellanos are suspected in several other spectacular crimes, including a shootout between state and federal police in Tijuana and the ambush murder of that city’s police chief last year.