12 Alleged Drug Cartel Leaders Charged With Conspiracy

Twelve leaders of an international cartel that has transported hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal drugs from Mexico into California have been indicted on conspiracy charges, U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said Tuesday in San Diego.

The charges against alleged members of Tijuana’s notorious Arellano-Felix drug gang represent an “unprecedented show of international cooperation” between drug officials in Mexico and the United States, said Ashcroft.

“Today ... is a good day for justice,” he said. “It is a good day for all of those in Mexico and the United States who believe hope, law and life should triumph over greed, crime and death.”

The two indictments, which were announced jointly by Ashcroft and Mexican Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo-De La Concha, accuse the gang of 20 murders in the United States and Mexico, and officials say the defendants and their cohorts may be responsible for 80 more.

The indictments allege that between 1986 and last November, the defendants “used a campaign of fear, torture and murder to silence potential informants, rivals, Mexican law enforcement, Mexican media and the public at large.”

One of the indicted men, Alberto Benjamin Arellano-Felix, 49, who is in custody in Mexico, is described by officials as the leader of the cartel.

Two of his brothers were also indicted. Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix, 33, who was captured by Mexican police in 1994 but later escaped, is said to have been the leader of the gang’s trafficking operations in northern Baja California. Eduardo Ramon Arellano-Felix, 46, is said to have been running the cartel operations in Tijuana.

In addition to Alberto Benjamin Arellano-Felix, four others of those charged are in the custody of Mexican officials. They are Jesus Labra-Aviles, 58; Ismael Higuera-Guerrero, 42; Rigoberto Yanez, 41; and Armando Martinez-Duarte, 48.

Five other indicted men remain at large and are believed to be living in Mexico. They are Jorge Aureliano-Felix, 51; Manuel Aguirre-Galindo, 59; Gilberto Higuera-Guerrero, 38; Efrain Perez, 49; and Gustavo Rivera-Martinez, 41.

Officials say all 12 defendants are members of the top hierarchy of the Arellano-Felix organization, a multinational cartel that, according to the indictment, negotiated a cocaine-for-weapons partnership with one of Colombia’s anti-government guerrilla groups, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, known by its Spanish initials as FARC.

The cartel used fishing boats, private planes and commercial airliners to import tons of cocaine from Colombia into Mexico and then hauled the drugs to the border towns of Mexicali and Tijuana in convoys of trucks, Ashcroft said.

He said that after the drugs were unloaded, the defendants and their cohorts used secret compartments in the backpacks of hikers, small boats, personal and commercial vehicles and helicopters to move the contraband across the border into the United States.

To evade police, they used armored cars equipped with guns, bulletproof glass and devices that spewed smoke and dropped oil and nails on the pavement to discourage pursuit, Ashcroft said.

One of the indictments charges all of the defendants but Rivera-Martinez with racketeering offenses under the federal RICO statute, conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances and conspiracy to commit money-laundering. The other indictment charges Rivera-Martinez separately with conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances.

It was not immediately clear why the case of Rivera-Martinez was separated from the others. Officials describe him as one of Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix’s top lieutenants and say he recruited American gang members in San Diego as cartel gunmen.

Higuera-Guerrero, said to be a cartel gunman, was arrested three years ago at his home near Ensenada. Aguirre-Galindo and Labra-Aviles are described by officials as cartel money-launderers.

A fourth Arellano-Felix brother, Ramon, said to be one of the gang’s top gunmen, died last year in a shootout with Mexican police.

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Times staff writer Anne-Marie O’Connor contributed to this report.