Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix (24 October 1949 – 18 October 2013) was a Mexican drug lord and former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, a drug trafficking organization. He was the oldest of seven brothers and headed the criminal organization early in the 1990s alongside them. Through his brother Benjamín, Francisco Rafael joined the Tijuana Cartel in 1989 following the arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, one of the most prominent drug czars in Mexico during the 1980s. When the Arellano Félix took control of the organization in the early 1990s, tensions with the rival Sinaloa Cartel prompted violent attacks and slayings from both fronts.
The drug lord was arrested in 1993 in Tijuana, Baja California, and imprisoned at Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum security prison. In 2006, he was extradited to the United States pending charges on drug trafficking in a California federal district court. He was released from prison two years later and deported back to Mexico. Back in his home country, Francisco Rafael had no other pending criminal charges. While celebrating his birthday in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, on 18 October 2013, a gunman disguised as a clown shot him dead.
Early life Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, on 24 October 1949, to Benjamín Francisco Arellano Sánchez (father) and Norma Alicia Félix Zazueta (mother). His father was from the state of Durango but emigrated to Sinaloa, where he met his wife, in the 1940s. The couple had eleven children, Francisco Rafael being the eldest of his seven brothers (Benjamín, Carlos Alberto, Eduardo, Ramón Eduardo, Luis Fernando, Francisco Javier) and four sisters (Alicia María, Enedina, Norma Isabel and Leticia). He also had two half-brothers, Jesús and Manuel Arellano, but their second surnames remain confidential. Francisco Rafael grew up in a modest house in Miguel Hidalgo St. #566 in Culiacán, blocks away from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, and lived there for about 20 years. Neighbors recall that the Arellano Félix brothers were "cheerful boys" without addictions and inclined to selling clothes, licor, and candy that they brought illegally from the United States. Francisco Rafael went to "Álvaro Obregón" elementary school a couple of streets away from their house. He later attended "Emilio Obeso" middle school in the same neighborhood. At a young age, Francisco Rafael dropped out of middle school to help out his father, a mechanic. Alongside his brothers Benjamín and Ramón, however, he also smuggled contraband from Tijuana. His affinity towards music led him and his two brothers to form a musical group known as "Sonido Escorpión" and later renamed as "Los Escorpiones". By the 1970s, his family moved to Guadalajara, Jalisco, but Francisco Rafael stayed in Culiacán, where he owned an event center known as "El Chaplín". He then moved years later to Mazatlán and opened a discothèque, "Frankie Oh". The discothèque was a major nightlife attraction in Mazatlán during the mid-1980s. With an estimated US$5 million investment to build it, "Frankie Oh" had the capacity to host 2,500 people; it had an internal waterfall and a large dance floor surrounded by a fish tank. The nightclub's theme also mirrored a zoo because it had several exotic animals, including two lions, in the entrances and in the surroundings. The only non-living animal was a giant metal statue of a scorpion which was both a water fountain and the logo of the nightclub. Francisco Rafael usually carried a diamond-encrusted scorpion necklace in reference to his astrological sign, the Scorpio.
The disco hosted several famous Mexican and international artists, including but not limited to Luis Miguel, Emmanuel, Mijares, and Nelson Ned, Ricardo Montaner, among others. It also hosted car and motorcycle shows where Francisco Rafael performed with his Harley-Davidson. With his popularity rising in Mazatlán, he was named "Businessman of the Year" by a local radio station. Aside from managing the disco, Francisco Rafael organized beauty contests, sports tournaments, and made frequent appearances in social magazines. He was a close friend of former World Champion Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez, whom he considered as close as a brother of his. Francisco Rafael lived most of his early life as a businessman and playboy while his brothers, Benjamín and Ramón, became involved in the drug trade after moving to Tijuana in the 1980s. Francisco Rafael was first married to Victoria Barrionuevo and had three children (Francisco, Benjamín Arellano Barrionuevo, and an unnamed daughter); after separating and divorcing, he remarried, to Rocío del Carmen Lizárraga Lizárraga, whom he abducted several months after she was declared Carnival Queen of Mazatlán just after her 18th birthday in May 1990.
Crimes Francisco Rafael's maternal aunt, Agustina Félix Zazueta, married Jesús Labra Avilés (alias "El Chuy"), a drug trafficker under the tutelage of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel and a high-profile drug lord in Mexico. Other sources say that the Arellano Félix brothers were nephews of the drug lord Félix Gallardo, who allegedly introduced them to the drug trade in Baja California. Benjamín worked with the drug trafficker Javier Caro Payán (cousin of Rafael Caro Quintero), who later fled to Canada after Félix Gallardo was arrested in 1989 and after he feared a coup from the Arellano Félix.
With the leadership void open, Benjamín started to work full-time with his uncle Labra Avilés; Francisco Rafael, Ramón, and Javier later join them in Tijuana. The arrest of Félix Gallardo led to the disintegration of the Guadalajara Cartel into several drug trafficking organizations: in the western coast, a faction formed the Sinaloa Cartel; in the Ciudad Juárez border area, another group formed the Juárez Cartel; and in the Baja California border region, others formed the so-called Tijuana Cartel, which was formed by the Arellano Félix clan and lieutenants previously loyal to Félix Gallardo in the area. In December 1989, the Arellano Félix ordered their gunmen to decimate the Machi Ramírez, a once-prominent crime family that controlled the drug trade in Tijuana prior to their arrival. Once established in Tijuana, the Arellano Félix clan forged important relations with some of the most prominent families in the region.
The flight, eventual arrest, and murder of Caro Payán angered his associates that headed the Sinaloa and Sonora Cartels. Two leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, now jailed in the United States, and his business partner Héctor "El Güero" Palma, attempted to take control of Tijuana from the hands of the Arellano Félix in the early 1990s. The antagonism lasted for several years and was accompanied by violent acts in the states of Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, Guerrero, Michoacán and Oaxaca.
In 1989, "El Chapo" Guzmán sent Armando López (alias "El Rayo"), one of his most-trusted men, to speak with the Arellano Félix in Tijuana. Before he had a chance to speak face-to-face with them, López was killed by Ramón. The corpse was disposed in the outskirts of the city and the Tijuana Cartel ordered a hit on the remaining family members of the López family to prevent future reprisals. Two years later, Ramón killed another Sinaloa Cartel associate, Rigoberto Campos Salcido (alias "El Rigo"), prompting ever more intense conflicts with the rival cartel. In September 1992, the Tijuana Cartel ordered another hit against their rivals; in Iguala, Guerrero, lawyers of Félix Gallardo and several of his family members were kidnapped and killed by gunmen. "El Güero" Palma responded to the attacks by ordering several of his men to kill eight members of the Arellano Félix organization at the Christine discothèque in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. Ramón and Francisco Javier were the prime targets but they escaped uninjured.
The rivalry reached its apex on 24 May 1993 when gunmen affiliated with the Tijuana Cartel attempted to kill "El Chapo" Guzmán in the Guadalajara International Airport. In the raging fire, gunmen shot a luxurious vehicle thought to hold Guzmán; however, among those aboard was the Roman Catholic Cardinal, Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, who was killed at the scene, along with six other civilians. Guzmán successfully escaped the assassination attempt by leaving in a taxi. On 4 December 1993, Francisco Rafael was arrested by the Federal Judicial Police (PJF) in Tijuana for charges on drug trafficking, illegal use of weaponry under Mexican law, and complicity in the murder of Posadas Ocampo. He was sentenced to 10 years and three months and imprisoned at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum security prison in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico. Unlike his brothers who eventually led the Tijuana Cartel and made it one of the leading and most violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico during the 1990s, Francisco Rafael was not a key player in the cartel's hegemony. His arrest in 1993 came before the family's downfall and the arrests and/or deaths of his brothers. In the Tijuana Cartel, his task was to coordinate the buying and selling of narcotics to the United States.
Extradition to the U.S. A 1980 US indictment said that Francisco Rafael was under investigation by the DEA for alleged cocaine and heroin distribution in the San Diego area. The DEA had identified him as one of the cocaine suppliers and set up an undercover operation to arrest him and his associates by purchasing multi-ton shipments of cocaine. He admitted to have worked with drug distributor Ramón Torresillos-Rendón, and that he used him as a mediator for a drug transaction with an undercover federal agent. In court, Francisco Rafael admitted having sent Torresillos-Rendón and four other individuals to sell nine ounces of cocaine to the agent. He was arrested in California on 7 August 1980 and remained under custody until or around 8 September 1980 after paying a US$150,000 bond and promising to appear at every court session. Nonetheless, he fled to Mexico shortly afterwards and did not appear in court on 8 October 1980.
On 2 June 2003, United States authorities requested the Mexican government to extradite Francisco Rafael. A Mexican federal judge approved the request the following year but the drug lord was not extradited to the United States until September 16, 2006. He was flown from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, via helicopter and handed over to U.S. authorities in a prison in Brownsville, Texas, after a 10-year sentence in Mexico. He was then transferred to the state of California pending federal charges on drug trafficking. On 18 June 2007, he pleaded guilty to the possession and distribution of cocaine before U.S. District Judge Irma E. Gonzalez in a San Diego federal court. In his testimony, he admitted to selling about 250 grams of cocaine to a supplier who negotiated with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in an unnamed motel in San Diego in 1980. In October 2007, Francisco Rafael was sentenced to six years in prison and with possibility to parole in four months given the time he had already served in prison.
Release and deportation