Extradition of Drug Cartel Boss May Take Years

Mexican officials cautioned Monday that any move to extradite notorious Tijuana drug cartel chief Benjamin Arellano Felix to face justice in the United States could take months, if not years.

Arellano Felix, one of the most wanted men on both sides of the border, was captured over the weekend in an operation that one high-ranking U.S. official called a “sea change” marking Mexico’s more aggressive tactics against drug traffickers who until recently operated with impunity.

Another “big fish”--Osiel Cardenas, head of the so-called Gulf Cartel--is in the cross hairs of Mexican police and may soon be arrested, said the U.S. official, who is closely connected to the drug fight. Cardenas’ cartel is accused of trafficking cocaine and assaulting U.S. federal agents in the state of Tamaulipas near the Texas border.

“We may be seeing the last days of some untouchables,” the official said.

The arrest of Arellano Felix has put President Vicente Fox in a strong position in advance of next week’s talks with President Bush in Monterrey, Mexico, Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda said Monday. Immigration, border infrastructure, security and water issues will be on the agenda.

Arellano Felix, 49, whose drug mafia is responsible for an estimated one-quarter or more of the cocaine entering the United States from Mexico, was arrested by army units early Saturday outside Puebla, east of Mexico City, after having eluded capture for the better part of a decade. No shots were fired, and he is now in the maximum-security La Palma prison near the capital.

Also Saturday, Mexican Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha declared that Benjamin’s brother, Ramon Arellano Felix, 37, the cartel’s chief enforcer, died in a Feb. 10 police shootout in Mazatlan. DNA tests are pending to confirm the death.

The capture of one Arellano Felix brother and the apparent death of another has left the cartel “dismantled,” Macedo told reporters.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials said they would press for the extradition of Benjamin Arellano Felix to face trafficking charges in the United States. Castaneda told reporters Monday that extradition is not guaranteed but subject to judicial recommendation. He added, however, that the Mexican government had agreed to numerous extradition requests in the past year.

Mexican law forbids extradition of Mexican nationals who would face either a life sentence or the death penalty in a foreign court. But U.S. authorities have gotten around this restriction by brokering deals in which traffickers would be convicted of consecutive terms of 20 years or more.

Before extradition is considered, Arellano Felix would probably face prosecution in Mexico, Castaneda said. The process could take years; the foreign minister’s chief of staff, Arturo Sarukhan Casamitjana, noted that even “small trials” of lesser drug traffickers can last 18 months in Mexico.

If convicted on both sides of the border, Arellano Felix faces what could amount to life in prison. After his Mexican trial, he could “go to the United States for his trial there, come back to serve his sentence here, and then be sent back to the United States to prison,” Castaneda said.

Arellano Felix had been living in a quiet Puebla suburb under a false name since August, when he paid $250,000 for a walled house. Neighbors, including executives at the nearby Volkswagen factory, described him as quiet.

The high-ranking U.S. government official, who asked that his name not be used, said Mexican authorities acted on their own to capture Arellano Felix, with minimal help from U.S. authorities. He lauded the new spirit of cooperation between the United States and Mexico.

“This ought to send shock waves through the whole criminal element in Mexico that the rules have changed, that the tolerance that allowed these guys to go free doesn’t exist anymore,” he said.

U.S.-Mexico cooperation has been credited for the capture last year of two figures accused of trafficking narcotics through the Yucatan Peninsula: Mario Villanueva, the ex-governor of Quintana Roo state, and his alleged conspirator Alcides Ramon Magana, known as “El Metro.”

The U.S. official pointed to last fall’s Operation Landslide, which broke up a heroin-smuggling ring based in Michoacan state and led to dozens of arrests in California and Mexico, as evidence of a new trust between U.S. and Mexican law enforcement.

“Before Fox, had we given that information to Mexicans, we might have seen it splashed in newspapers the next day,” but no one would have been arrested, he said.