Source: Seattle Times Pubdate: September 24, 1997 Contact: http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/browse/html97/altdrug_092497.html U.S. to post reward for drug kingpin by Michael J. Sniffen Associated Press WASHINGTON U.S. officials are prepared to offer a $2 million reward for Mexico's most violent drug kingpin and put him on the FBI's mostwanted list, lawenforcement officials say. Ramon Arellano Felix, 33, the head of security for a gang run by five brothers, is charged with drug conspiracy in a sealed federal indictment, those officials said yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The charges may be made public today as the FBI adds him to its list of 10 mostwanted fugitives. The Arellano Felix gang, headed by Ramon's 43yearold brother, Benjamin, controls the smuggling of tons of cocaine and marijuana and large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine into California from the area around Tijuana. An FBIDrug Enforcement Administration task force in San Diego believes the gang returns hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year to Mexico from its U.S. operations, which have expanded in recent years into the Midwest and New York. The $2 million reward to be posted by the State Department for the capture and conviction of Ramon Arellano Felix is similar to rewards posted for previous foreign suspects. Such rewards are credited with attracting tips that helped U.S. agents capture two major fugitives in Pakistan: Mir Aimal Kansi, apprehended this summer on charges of gunning down CIA employees outside the agency's headquarters, and Ramzi Yousef, arrested in 1995 on charges related to the World Trade Center bombing. DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine told a Senate subcommittee last March that Ramon Arellano Felix is the most violent of the brothers in the gang, coordinates recruitment of its wellarmed guards and commands its armed operations. "Ramon Arellano's responsibilities consist of the planning of murders of rival drug leaders and those Mexican lawenforcement officials not on their payroll" and gang members who fall out of favor, Constantine testified. These enforcers often are hired from violent street gangs in Mexico and the United States in the belief that gang members are expendable, he added. Their assassinations are designed "to send a message to those (traffickers) who attempt to utilize the MexicaliTijuana corridor without paying the area transit tax demanded by the Arellano Felix organization," Constantine said. On Aug. 6, 1993, the U.S. Marshals Service issued an extradition warrant in San Diego for Ramon Arellano Felix for alleged weapons violations. He also is wanted in Mexico for alleged complicity in the May 1993 assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, archbishop of Guadalajara, and other charges. Constantine told the Senate the Arellano Felix organization used MexicanAmericans from a San Diego gang for the assassination at the Guadalajara airport, which he said was aimed at rival trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera and killed the prelate by accident. The DEA said in August the gang's security force, commanded by Ramon Arellano Felix, also has been responsible for assassinating several senior Mexican lawenforcement officials, including Ernesto Ibarra Santes, head of the federal judicial police in Tijuana.