Drug Kingpins

Vice President George Bush said today that "drug kingpins" and people who commit drug-related murders should be executed, and quickly. The Republican presidential candidate, winding up a three-day New York campaign swing, made the call for mandatory death penalties for certain drug-related crimes during a breakfast speech to the Assn. for a Better New York. "And, frankly, I'd like to find a way to make this penalty swift," he said. "Only a swift penalty will serve as a true deterrent."

MEXICO CITY - On the eve of President Obama's trip to Mexico, Mexican authorities on Tuesday announced the capture of a key drug cartel operative, the father-in-law and associate of one of the world's most-wanted fugitive kingpins. The major arrest - the first under new President Enrique Peña Nieto - comes as the extraordinarily close U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the drug war is undergoing significant changes. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that officials of the 5-month-old Mexican administration were alarmed to discover how deeply involved U.S. advisors were in sensitive areas of security and law enforcement during the six-year government of former President Felipe Calderon.

One of Mexico's most powerful drug kingpins--suspected of involvement in the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena--was indicted in Los Angeles on Thursday on federal charges of conspiring to distribute cocaine.

Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman has fallen off Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's billionaires. Guzman, who has been in hiding since escaping from a maximum-security prison in 2001, is chieftain of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's biggest and oldest drug-trafficking network. He first made the billionaire list in 2009 and remained on it until this year. Luisa Kroll, an editor at Forbes, said that Guzman's "whereabouts are unknown" and therefore it's difficult to verify his assets.

Authorities knew the alleged Mexican drug kingpin didn't like to give up without a fight. In 1994, when police tried to arrest Francisco Javier Arellano Felix in Tijuana, a federal police commander and four other people died in a shootout that led to his escape. So on Tuesday, as a U.S. Coast Guard vessel edged up to a fishing boat off the coast of Baja California, about 30 heavily armed Coast Guardsmen prepared for a potentially bloody encounter.

Fresh off this week's capture of a notorious drug lord, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared Wednesday that his sustained assault on organized crime and efforts to clean up the police were paying off. In the president's annual state of the nation report, delivered in writing to Congress, Calderon cited a string of drug kingpins arrested or killed during the last year as evidence of success in his nearly 4-year-old offensive against the...

Reporting from San Diego It was the shout-out heard 'round Tijuana. Singer Mario Quintero, the mustachioed leader of Los Tucanes de Tijuana, cut into a perky number to yell a greeting to a pair of the band's more ruthless fans, crime bosses known by their nicknames, El Teo and Muletas (Crutches). "My regards to El Teo , and his compadre, Muletas ," Quintero said. " Arriba la maña " — "Mob rules. " The crowd at the historic Agua Caliente racetrack cheered.

Jorge Castaneda sums up many great reasons for ending the war on drugs (Commentary, Sept. 2), but he's wrong in one statement he makes, calling the drug war "this absurd war no one really wants to wage." For the drug kingpins, Latin American politicos, prison construction companies, CIA covert operations funding and the beer and liquor industries this is no absurd war. Keeping the war on drugs alive is an essential business survival strategy. But, let's talk about the moral threat to society.

If the walls of this Mexican jail could talk, they would curse in Spanish, and English. Decades ago, when Americans visited this border city in hard-partying hordes, more than a few drunk sailors and brawling bar patrons ended up in one of these dank, fetid cages. They would share cellblocks with drug kingpins, assassins, child molesters and thieves. There were escapes and riots, fights and bribes, earning the jail notorious status through T-shirts ? "I survived the Tijuana jail" ?

A Santa Barbara man was convicted Wednesday of laundering more than $24 million in narcotics proceeds for two Colombian cocaine organizations that sold the drug in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Stefan Von Metzger, 65, was convicted of 36 counts of conspiring to aid the distribution of cocaine and to defraud the United States and making false statements on federal documents. He faces sentencing June 12. After a 2-week trial in U.S. District Court, jurors found Von Metzger deposited millions of dollars in cash into Santa Barbara-area banks in 1985 and 1986 and transferred the funds to South American banks.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Venezuelan police on Tuesday captured Colombia's most wanted fugitive, the notorious Daniel "El Loco" Barrera, who is suspected of smuggling 100 tons of cocaine in recent years to U.S. and European markets. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos went on national television Tuesday night to announce the capture of Barrera in the western Venezuelan city of San Cristobal. Colombian authorities had posted a $2.5-million reward for information leading to his arrest.

A federal judge sentenced Benjamin Arellano Felix to 25 years in prison Monday, rejecting a last-ditch plea by the former Mexican drug kingpin to reduce a punishment that has already been criticized as too lenient. Arellano Felix's rambling statement in federal court provided an unexpected climax to a historic case that targeted the cartel that bears his family name, once Mexico's most powerful organized crime group. Arellano Felix admitted in a plea agreement in January that he headed the cartel that terrorized rivals and turned Tijuana into a major drug-trafficking corridor into the United States.

Reporting from San Diego -- Former drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal racketeering and money-laundering conspiracy charges, marking the end of a decade-old case that targeted what once was Mexico's most powerful organized crime group. Arellano Felix, 58, the former leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, transformed Tijuana into a major trafficking corridor into the U.S. during a 16-year reign that ended with his arrest in Mexico in 2002. The organization, also known as the Tijuana cartel, poured tons of drugs into California and generated profits that fueled a criminal empire that terrorized rivals, partnered with corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials and funded flashy lifestyles that became the template for Hollywood depictions of Mexican organized crime.

A federal judge on Monday disqualified the lead attorney for Mexican drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix, ruling that his participation in the high-profile case was marred by potential conflicts of interests that could force him to take the witness stand. Federal prosecutors were attempting to get the attorney, Jan Ronis, kicked off the case in part because he allegedly worked on behalf of the Arellano Felix drug cartel to dissuade a witness from cooperating with U.S. law enforcement.

Reporting from San Diego -- Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to disqualify the lead defense attorney for Mexican drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix, saying the lawyer once worked on behalf of the Arellano Felix drug cartel to dissuade a witness from cooperating with U.S. law enforcement. The accusations raise the possibility of the attorney, Jan Ronis, being called as a witness against his own client, who is charged with leading what was once Mexico's most feared organized crime group, prosecutors said in a motion filed in San Diego.

Reporting from San Diego and Mexico City -- The Mexican government Friday extradited to the United States drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix, the former leader of one of Mexico's most feared and powerful organized crime groups, whose ruthless reign transformed northern Baja California into a major drug trafficking corridor into the U.S. Arellano Felix, who had been incarcerated in a Mexican prison since his arrest in 2002, was flown to San Diego...

Ruben Zuno Arce, a prominent Mexican businessman charged with perjury in the investigation into the murder of federal drug Agent Enrique Camarena, was released from jail in Los Angeles on Wednesday and returned to Mexico. Zuno, 59, the brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echevveria, posted bail after two more people offered property to secure his $200,000 bond. Zuno was released to the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which put him on a plane to Mexico. U.S.

On Dec. 19, The Times reported that a 5,000-pound seizure of cocaine would spoil a "white" Christmas for the cocaine addicts of Los Angeles. A similar claim was made in September when 21 tons of cocaine was captured at a warehouse in Sylmar. But today, I contacted five different cocaine dealers and asked if I could purchase anything, and they all said, "Sure, no problem." I conducted the same survey in September and got the same response. My conclusion is that there never has been, and never will be, a cocaine bust that affects the availability of cocaine on the street in any way whatsoever.

The Mexican government Friday extradited to the U.S. drug kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix, the former leader of one of Mexico’s most feared and powerful organized crime groups, whose ruthless reign transformed northern Baja California into a major drug trafficking corridor into the U.S. Arellano Felix, who has been incarcerated in a Mexican prison since his arrest in 2002, was flown to San Diego and transferred to the downtown Metropolitan Correctional...

The Mexican drug kingpin known as "Tony Tormenta," a top leader of the powerful Gulf cartel, was killed Friday in a ferocious gun battle with military forces in the northern border state that had long been his tightly controlled home turf. Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, alias Tony Tormenta or Tony the Storm, was killed along with three of his henchmen after hours of battle in the city of Matamoros, in Tamaulipas state just across the border from Brownsville, Texas, the Mexican government announced.