U.S. Slaying May Be Baja Gangland Hit

The bold gangland-style murder bore all the eerie markings of a classic Tijuana underworld hit, with chilling similarities to a 1992 drive-by slaying just a few miles down the road.

Fernando Jesus Gutierrez was driving his white Mercedes-Benz coupe to his elegant suburban residence at dinner time Wednesday when an expert marksman--or marksmen--pulled alongside and pumped five shots into his face, escaping into rush-hour traffic, authorities say.

But the scene of that killing was not Tijuana, but California 75, a picturesque beach strip known as the Silver Strand in the seaside community of Coronado, one of San Diego’s most exclusive ZIP codes.

“It appears that Gutierrez was targeted,” said homicide Lt. Gerry Lipscomb of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, which is leading the investigation. “The suspect--or suspects--appear to be very proficient at firing a weapon.”

Sheriff’s investigators say they have not determined a motive for the crime but are interviewing witnesses and others who have come forward with information.

But one senior law enforcement official said: “This was a gangland hit. We’re going to take this very seriously.”

Gutierrez, 38, was heir to a once-successful San Ysidro import-export business he ran until his Tijuana business affairs were swamped by financial and legal woes three years ago. According to U.S. anti-narcotics agents, one of his ill-fated business schemes involved the reputed leaders of the Tijuana drug cartel, the Arellano Felix brothers.

U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin said authorities are investigating whether the Arellanos were somehow involved.

U.S. anti-drug authorities say they called Gutierrez in for questioning two years ago because of his alleged business ties to the Arellanos, but never investigated him as a possible trafficker. Federal agents say he must have known, even then, that he was at risk.

“He was interviewed by the Drug Enforcement Administration about his legitimate business deals with the Arellanos that went sour,” said Heidi Landgraf, a DEA spokeswoman. “He is not the subject of any DEA investigation.”

Gutierrez had other Tijuana business enemies as well, authorities say. There was an ill-starred 1990 shopping mall project, the Plaza San Fernando, which also tarnished the career of Claudio Ruffo Appel, the brother of the former Baja California governor. Today it stands abandoned and half finished in Rosarito Beach.

Roberto Hernandez Alcaraz, head of apprehensions for the state Judicial Police in Tijuana, said he has an outstanding arrest warrant for Gutierrez on 18 counts of fraud, abuse of confidence and other white-collar offenses dating back to 1994. Since his fiscal meltdown, Gutierrez has spent most of his time in San Diego, where he was a member of the swank Rancho Santa Fe Polo Club, in spite of his debts, Hernandez said.

“This guy was a phantom,” Hernandez said. “We never saw him when he came to Tijuana, and by the time we heard he was here, he had vanished in smoke. If you treat people badly, they end up hating you.”

Hernandez said Gutierrez’s father, now deceased, had been a very respected businessman.

“His son turned out to be a little devil, though he was a junior, born into opulence, with silk diapers,” he said. In Mexico, young men from wealthy families are often referred to as juniors.

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Lipscomb said investigators were struck by the similarity between the Gutierrez killing and the September 1992 drive-by shooting of another prosperous young man, Alejandro Cazares Ledesma, a prominent 30ish businessman with investments in Tijuana and San Diego. Cazares was shot a few miles south down California 75 in Imperial Beach. As with Gutierrez, U.S. federal agents suspect Cazares was the victim of an underworld hit.

“Both of the victims lived in the Coronado Cays and were relatively well-to-do, and both met their demise on the Silver Strand,” Lipscomb said.

And both victims, U.S. anti-drug agents believe, had ties of some kind to Tijuana narcotics traffickers, who are notorious for settling their disputes, regardless of their nature, with spectacular and deliberately public violence executed with expert professionalism, U.S. anti-drug agents said.

After the shooting at about 5:20 p.m. Wednesday, Gutierrez’s 1991 Mercedes-Benz careened down the highway for about 200 yards and veered off the road, jumping the berm and skidding to a halt in the sand near the surf line of San Diego Bay, Lipscomb said.

Coronado police believed that they were responding to a car accident until they found Gutierrez’s body slumped over the wheel, Lipscomb said.

The two northbound lanes of California 75 were shut down overnight and not reopened until after 9 a.m. Thursday while investigators waited for daylight to comb the crime scene, Lipscomb said, causing a morning rush-hour traffic jam.

Searchers turned up a 9-millimiter semiautomatic pistol that investigators believe may have been the murder weapon, authorities say.