Pubdate: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 Source: Miami Herald (FL) Copyright: 2006 The Miami Herald Contact: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262 Author: Traci Carl, Associated Press MEXICO EXTRADITES DRUG LORD SUSPECT MEXICO CITY - Alleged drug kingpin Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix was extradited to the United States on Saturday to face drug charges, becoming the first major Mexican drug lord suspect to be sent north for trial. Mexico's extradition of the man who is suspected of having once run the Arellano Felix drug clan was a victory for U.S. officials, who have been pushing Mexico to send them more drug lords. Arellano Felix was loaded into a helicopter in Matamoros, then flown across the border and handed over to Texas officials in Brownsville after serving a 10-year sentence in Mexico. He will be taken to California to face trial on charges stemming from a 1980 case in which he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover police officer in the United States. U.S. authorities requested Arellano Felix's extradition on June 2, 2003. A federal judge approved that request in 2004, but it took two years for the Foreign Relations Department to approve the extradition. Arellano Felix was arrested in December 1993 in Tijuana and was convicted under Mexico's tough weapons laws rather than for drug offenses. He was the oldest of seven brothers in a family accused of running what was throughout the 1990s one of Mexico's largest and most-violent drug smuggling gangs. Most of the Arellano Felix brothers have been arrested or killed, weakening the cartel. But Mexican and U.S. officials said the gang still moves tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States from its operations base in Tijuana, Mexico. Arellano Felix's brother, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, was captured on a fishing boat last month by the U.S. Coast Guard in international waters off the coast of La Paz, Mexico. Benjamin Arellano Felix, reputedly the planning chief of the gang, was arrested in March 2002 in Puebla, east of Mexico City. He is still in a Mexican jail. Another brother, Ramon Arellano Felix, was shot to death a month earlier in the Pacific tourist port of Mazatlan. Police say he had been the group's feared enforcer, in charge of killing to settle scores. Eduardo Arellano Felix is still at large, and not much is known of the gang's other brothers and sisters. - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine