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 Editorials | Issues | January 2007 
Despite Arrests, Deaths, Tijuana Cartel Still Strong
 El Universal
| | Mexican soldiers inspect a vehicle at a military checkpoint in the Pacific beach resort of Acapulco January 14, 2007. President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December, has dispatched thousands of troops to the border city of Tijuana and to his home state of Michoacan, both swamped by waves of killings, as rival drug cartels fight for control of trafficking routes. (Reuters) |
Despite the arrest and deaths of a number of its members during the last six years, the Tijuana Cartel remains largely intact.
In fact, the organization that controls drug trafficking between Mexico and the United States along the Pacific has perhaps emerged strengthened, according to police here.
The cartel, long run by the Arellano Félix family, has been forced to evolve and become more efficient to maintain its grip on the region´s booming business of illicit activities, which range from drug smuggling and small-time dealing to racketeering and kidnapping.
Currently, following a federal crackdown that has deployed over 3,000 federal agents and soldiers here to restore order following months of drug-related killings, the city is going through an "atypical calm," according to Jorge Cruz Medina, head of Baja California state´s ministerial police. Some hypothesize that the cartel is laying low until the federal forces withdraw.
The criminal organization, which has made headlines in both Mexico and the United States for its brutality for well over a decade, most recently lost Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, nabbed in international waters last August. Eleven associates were also arrested following the operation, which was coordinated by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement.
The cartel had been previously been run by Benjamín Arellano Félix, who was arrested in Puebla in March of 2002 and is currently being held in the Palma penitentiary compound in the State of Mexico, home to Mexico´s most dangerous criminals.
His younger brother, Ramón Arellano Félix, often called the most violent of the brothers, was killed several months earlier during a shootout with police in Mazatlán.
RIVAL GROUPS
According to sources from the Attorney General´s Office (PGR), the cartel went through a phase of weakness, in which other, local criminal enterprises began to pop up, but today the group has begun to "eliminate" them.
Many of the new generation of leaders that has taken their place is still largely unknown to authorities, who recognize the figures only by nicknames commonly used among drug smugglers, such as "The White Shrimp," "The Engineer," and "The White Taco."
The PGR reports also indicate the cartel is divided into a number of independent cells, each of which operates under the command of one leader and 50 to 100 "operators," which can carry out a range of activities.
These include racketeering, tipping off cartel leaders to police activities to carrying out killings. Those in the cartel´s employ receive up to US$500 a week for their services.
However, maintaining such an extensive payroll has strained profits, according to the PGR, and has forced the cartel to branch off into supplemental activities such as kidnapping and charging migrant smugglers and small-time dealers for operating on their turf.
However, the cartel´s main activity continues to be the trafficking of illicit drugs, mainly cocaine, into the United States. |
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