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01/04/2012 — Benjamin Arellano Félix , ex leader of the Tijuana cartel, pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in San Diego to racketeering and conspiracy to launder money. The plea calls for a maximum of 25 years in prison after federal prosecutors agreed to drop other charges which would have landed Arellano Felix in prison for 140 years. He was considered to be the brain and the financial boss of the Tijuana cartel and admitted in court to having lead the organization that distributed drugs into the U.S. while sending the profits back to Mexico, sometimes stuffed inside of cars.

Arellano Félix once headed the mighty Tijuana cartel which came to power in the late 1980s. In 2002 he was arrested and in 2007 he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for charges of drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico. He has been under indictment from the U.S. since 2003, which states that he was the principal leader and organizer for the Tijuana cartel since 1986, noting that the cartel was responsible for the torture and murder of victims from both the U.S. and Mexico through its work of smuggling marijuana and Colombian cocaine across the U.S.-Mexico border. In April 2011, Arellano Felix was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. to face charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering. He is also one of the “highest profile kingpins to face prosecution in the U.S.”

The Tijuana cartel was headed by the seven Arellano Félix brothers and between the 1990s until early 2000s it controlled the flow of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs into the U.S. from Tijuana and Mexicali. It began to lose its influence and stronghold of the border shortly after Arellano Félix was taken into custody in 2002. It also suffered with the death of his brother, Ramon, who was also the cartel’s top enforcer, who died in a shootout with Mexican authorities a month before Arellano Felix’s arrest. While the cartel has been weakened, it is still considered by Mexican authorities to be a prominent drug trafficking organization in Mexico.

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