Pubdate: Mon, 11 Mar 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: International
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Tim Weiner

MEXICAN DRUG LORD'S ARREST HELPS FOX AS HE AWAITS BUSH

MEXICO CITY -- The legend of the Arellano Felix drug gang is written in 
blood all over Mexico.

They killed for business and pleasure, often taking lives at random. Their 
bullets killed the Roman Catholic cardinal in 1993. They killed eight 
infants and children to settle a score in 1998.

But one death among many -- the killing of Pepe Patino -- may have been the 
beginning of the end for the gang, Mexico's most violent and powerful drug 
cartel.

Twenty-three months ago today, Mr. Patino, the Mexican drug prosecutor most 
trusted by his American counterparts, left a San Diego safe house with two 
colleagues and crossed the border for a morning meeting in Tijuana. 
Thirty-six hours later, their bodies were found in a desert ravine.

"We loved Pepe," said an American drug-enforcement official. "That was the 
last straw." American and Mexican officials, vowing revenge, redoubled 
their efforts to break the Arellano Felix cartel.

On Saturday morning, in a law-enforcement coup with great potential rewards 
for the government of President Vicente Fox, their efforts finally paid 
off. Mr. Fox will play host to President Bush next week, and his stature 
will be bolstered by the arrest of Benjamin Arellano Felix, 49, the chief 
of the gang and the "top priority" of the United States Drug Enforcement 
Administration, said its chief, Asa Hutchinson.

Mexican commandos, armed with intelligence from the United States and 
bolstered by a new and growing trust between Mexican and American 
counternarcotics forces, burst into a house in Puebla, on a street called 
Cerrada Escondida, or Hidden Dead-End.

There they found Benjamin Arellano Felix, a sheaf of $100 bills and an 
altar with flickering candles in memory of his brother, Ramon. The Mexican 
authorities now say they are sure that Ramon died in a shootout on Feb. 10, 
though his body has disappeared.

 From humble beginnings as two-bit liquor and cigarette smugglers, the 
Arellano Felix brothers -- Benjamin was the brain, Ramon the brawn -- 
shipped tons of Colombian cocaine and Mexican-made methamphetamine every 
month, feeding a seemingly insatiable demand in the United States.

They pierced the border with ships, airplanes, trucks and tunnels, 
including a 1,200-foot underground railroad. They laundered their cash into 
networks of legitimate-looking business and real-estate ventures, American 
officials said, while paying millions of dollars in bribes a month to 
police officers, prosecutors, judges and politicians.

Mr. Hutchinson called the arrest of Benjamin Arellano Felix "extraordinary 
work." He lavished praise on Mr. Fox, whose popularity has been ebbing in 
Mexico for want of concrete political and economic accomplishments, but who 
now may be able to win political concessions he has been seeking from the 
United States.

The arrest may end the annual ritual of "certification," in which the 
United States judges Mexican drug-enforcement cooperation. Mr. Bush is 
pressing the Republican-controlled House to approve a limited amnesty for 
Mexican migrants, and promises of economic development assistance for 
Mexico may flow from the White House as well.

For years, American officials publicly despaired about the Arellano Felix 
gang's grip on Mexico. A typical assessment came from a former D.E.A. 
administrator, Thomas Constantine: "They have become more powerful than the 
instruments of government in Mexico."

The gang's power extended far beyond their Tijuana headquarters. In Peru, 
the now-deposed security chief Vladimir Montesinos brokered the sale of 18 
tons of cocaine to the gang. In Colombia, they bartered guns and money for 
drugs from the rebels fighting the government. Gangs loyal to the cartel 
moved their drugs on the streets of scores of American cities and towns.

Their influence was reflected in the first official reports of the death of 
Pepe Patino: "A tragic traffic accident," said a state police commander.

In fact Mr. Patino was kidnapped, tortured and killed, his skull crushed by 
a pneumatic press. He was betrayed by a fellow law-enforcement officer, one 
among hundreds in Tijuana taking payoffs from the gang, a senior D.E.A. 
official said.

The battle to arrest Benjamin Arellano Felix is over. But in Tijuana today, 
officials are bracing for a war among the remnants of the gang and their 
rivals in the one of the world's most lucrative businesses.

"This is a terrific political coup for President Fox, but people here 
remain fearful of what will come next," said Raul Ramirez Baena, the human 
rights prosecutor in the attorney general's office for Baja California. "We 
have seen what happens when one kingpin falls. There are bloody battles, 
and another one rises in his place.

"The fundamental forces of the drug trade remain intact, particularly the 
demand for drugs in the United States, and increasingly in Mexico," he 
said. "As long as there is that demand, there will be drug cartels to feed it."

The arrest may give Mexicans "new confidence" in the police and 
politicians, Mr. Baena added. "But we should not lose sight of the fact 
that Mexican law enforcement agencies are infiltrated with corruption." 
That will not change overnight, he said, not even after a night that 
brought what Mr. Fox called "a grand triumph" for the forces of law in a 
long-lawless land.
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