Tijuana drug cartel chief arrested while watching World Cup_美文

Tijuana drug cartel chief arrested while watching World Cup

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The head of the once-mighty Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel was arrested while watching Mexico's soccer team play in the World Cup, a top Mexican federal official said on Tuesday.

Federal police chief Monte Alejandro Rubido said Fernando Sanchez Arellano was detained in the border city of Tijuana on Monday and was expected to be brought to Mexico City sometime on Tuesday.

Sanchez Arellano had $100,000 in cash when he was arrested, Rubido said at a news briefing at which he didn't take questions.

Photographs were shown of Sanchez Arellano in a green soccer jersey and with his cheeks painted with green, white and red, the colors of the Mexican flag.

Sanchez Arellano inherited leadership of the Arellano Felix cartel from his uncle, Javier Arellano Felix, who was arrested by the US Coast Guard in international waters off Mexico's Baja Californiain 2006. The uncle later was sentenced in San Diego to 40 years in federal prison.

Within two years, a renegade lieutenant, Teodoro Garcia Simental, made a power play and setoff a bloodbath that turned Tijuana into one of Mexico's most violent cities, plagued by day time shootouts, beheadings and mutilated corpses hanging from freeway bridges.

Sanchez Arellano, known as "The Engineer", was badly weakened after his rival was arrested in January 2010, which created an opening for the Sinaloa cartel to quietly gain control of Tijuana's underworld and its coveted smuggling corridor to San Diego.