Drug Cartel

The government claimed a major strike against drug gangs Sunday with the arrest of a man it characterized as the nation's last billionaire cocaine merchant still at large. Alberto Orlandez Gamboa, 42, was seized late Saturday in the port of Barranquilla. National Police Chief Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano said Orlandez is the reputed chief of the Coast drug cartel. He was wanted on numerous charges, including murder.

Authorities said they had arrested 25 suspected members of the Juarez drug cartel, including 16 federal, state and municipal police officers. The cartel is based in the border city of Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, according to a statement by the Mexican Attorney General's Office. The statement said authorities confiscated three Lear jets, several cars, cash and weapons following an investigation of private flights out of the Toluca international airport just west of Mexico City.

Associates of Medellin drug kingpin Pablo Escobar issued a statement today condemning their leader for last week's deadly bomb attack, indicating a split in the powerful drug cartel. The communique, sent to Bogota newspapers and signed by the cartel hit squad known as the Extraditables, claimed Escobar did not consult his drug trafficking allies before the bombing.

The reputed successor to the "king" of the Bolivian cocaine trade pleaded innocent Friday to charges in an 18-count indictment alleging that he led a drug cartel. Jose Roca Suarez, 38, pleaded innocent in U.S. District Court in San Diego. The indictment accuses him of orchestrating a major cocaine-trafficking network that resorted to kidnapings, beatings and murder to forward its drug trade. Roca was arrested Dec. 15 at his home in San Marino.

Authorities have arrested 23 people and seized more than $6 million in cash in a breakup of what they described as a major Mexican drug cartel that funneled cocaine from Colombia to Southern California, Burbank police said Wednesday. The arrests and seizures, completed Tuesday, culminatd a monthlong investigation by officers from the Burbank, Compton, Downey, South Gate and Whittier police departments. "We feel these are upper-echelon people in a major cartel," Burbank Police Sgt.

The reputed No. 3 man in Colombia's Cali drug cartel was arraigned in a Miami prison under tight security for fear fellow cocaine traffickers might try to free him, federal officials said. The Cali cartel--a rival to the better-known Medellin cocaine cartel--operates out of the city of Cali and has grabbed a growing share of Colombia's drug trade, Drug Enforcement Administration officials said. Luis Santacruz Echeverri, 35, was arraigned by U.S.

SAN DIEGO - For years, Benjamin Arellano Felix eluded U.S. law enforcement while running a Mexican drug cartel that terrorized rivals and poured hundreds of tons of cocaine into the country. So when the handcuffed kingpin arrived in San Diego aboard a government plane last year, U.S. authorities gathered on the tarmac, sharing hugs and handshakes as he was handed over to his longtime pursuers. But the sense of triumph has turned to disappointment in some quarters as Arellano Felix approaches his judgment hour in court Monday.

A man accused of running Los Angeles operations for Mexico's notorious Arellano-Felix drug cartel pleaded guilty Monday to federal narcotics drug and money laundering charges. Jorge Castro Gastelum, 34, faces nearly 17 years in prison under a plea agreement negotiated with prosecutors. He did not agree to cooperate with authorities in his plea agreement, however.

An accused leader of one of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges of selling cocaine in a San Diego motel. Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, one of seven brothers allegedly behind the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, admitted selling about half a pound of cocaine to an undercover police officer in 1980. He faces up to 15 years in prison, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy.

A man identified as the financial manager of the Juarez drug cartel has been arrested in Mexico on charges stemming from Operation Casablanca, a Los Angeles-based investigation into drug money laundering by Mexican banks during the 1990s, federal authorities said Tuesday. Jose Alvarez Tostado, also known as El Compadre, had been a fugitive since his indictment in 1998 along with 111 other people and three major Mexican banks in what was described as the biggest drug money investigation in U.S.