Tijuana Cartel Research Paper

Tijuana Cartel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tijuana Cartel Areas predominately controlled by the Tijuana Cartel shown in purple.
Founded 1989
Founding location Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

Years active 1989–present[1]

Territory Mexico:
Tijuana, Baja California
United States:
California

Ethnicity Mexican

Criminal activities Drug trafficking, money laundering,People smuggling, murder, arms trafficking, bribery[2]

Allies Juárez Cartel, Los Zetas,[3] Oaxaca Cartel

Rivals Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel[3]

The Tijuana Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Tijuana or Arellano-Félix Organization or Cártel Arellano Félix - CAF) is a Mexican drug cartelbased in Tijuana. The cartel was described as "one of the biggest and
The Tijuana cartel was further weakened in August 2006 when its chief, Javier Arellano Félix, was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard on a boat off the coast of Baja California.[5] Mexican army troops also were sent to Tijuana in January 2007 in an operation to restore order to the border city and root out corrupt police officers, who mostly were cooperating with the Tijuana cartel. As a result of these efforts, the Tijuana cartel is unable to project much power outside of its base in Tijuana.[6] Much of the violence that emerged in 2008 in Tijuana was a result of conflicts within the Tijuana cartel; on one side, the faction led by Teodoro García Simental(a.k.a. El Teo) favored kidnappings. The other faction, led by Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano (a.k.a. El Ingeniero), focused primarily on drug trafficking.[7] The faction led by Sánchez Arellano demanded the reduction of the kidnappings in Tijuana, but his demands were rejected by García Simental, resulting in high levels of violence.[7] Nonetheless, most of the victims in Tijuana were white-collar entrepreneurs, and the kidnappings were bringing "too much heat on organized crime" and disrupting the criminal enterprises and interests of the cartel.[8] The Mexican federal government responded by implementing "Operation Tijuana," a coordination carried out between the Mexican
border on Saturday, April 26, 2008 that was one of the bloodiest shootouts in the narco-war between the Tijuana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. On December 1, 2011, William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration 's office in San Diego, announced that the cartel had been annihilated and the Sinaloa Cartel now controlled a large number of the drug routes the Tijuana Cartel once had.[24] On December 12, 2011, Tijuana Police Chief Alberto Capella Ibarra also announced that captured cartel lieutenant Francisco Sillas Rocha had confessed that the Tijuana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel had formed a truce and that the Tijuana Cartel was seeking to merge with the Sinaloa Cartel[25] After Benjamin Arellano-Felix plead guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to launder money on January 4, 2012, it was accepted that the Tijuana Cartel had greatly lost influence.[15] It was also reported that the cartel had lost their former Tijuana hotbed to the Sinaloa Cartel.[15] The clan of the Arellano Felix continues, although diminished after the capture of their