Ramón Arellano Félix


Ramon Arellano Félix was a Mexican drug trafficker whom authorities linked to the Tijuana drug cartel.

Biography

Standing 188 cm and 100 kg, Arellano Félix was allegedly one of the most ruthless members of the cartel and was a suspect in various murders. Arellano Félix had been linked by Mexican police to the 1997 massacre of twelve members of a family outside of Ensenada, Baja California. The family was related to a drug dealer that had an unpaid debt to the Arellano Félix Cartel.
On September 18, 1997, Ramon Arellano Félix became the 451st fugitive to be placed on the Ten Most Wanted list. Leading to his Most Wanted Fugitive listing in the United States, he had been charged in a sealed indictment in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, with Conspiracy to Import Cocaine and Marijuana in drug trafficking.

Kingpin Act sanction

On 1 June 2000, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Ramón under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, for his involvement in drug trafficking, along with eleven other international criminals. The act prohibited U.S. citizens and companies from doing any kind of business activity with him, and virtually froze all his assets in the U.S.

Death and aftermath

On February 10, 2002, Arellano Félix was killed in a gunfight in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, where he was stopped due to a traffic infraction by a Mexican police officer who did not know at the time who Arellano Félix really was. Arellano Félix drew his gun and shot the police officer, who shot him back while falling to the ground.
According to Jesús Zambada García, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán ordered his execution. Arellano's older brother, Benjamín Arellano Félix, the cartel's mastermind, was arrested weeks later on March 9.
On August 14, 2006, the youngest of the Arellano brothers, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix, was arrested with some associates at sea, by the United States Coast Guard. They were in international waters off the coast of Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur. Francisco was extradited to the U.S. on September 16, 2006.
The only brother of the Arellano Félix cartel then at large, Eduardo Arellano Félix, was captured by the Mexican Army on October 26, 2008. At the time, the US State Department had been offering a reward of up to US$5 million for information leading to his arrest. According to a Mexican official, at the time of Eduardo Arellano Félix's capture, control of the cartel passed to Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano, a son of Eduardo Arellano Félix's sister Alicia.

In popular culture

In the 2017 Netflix and Univision series, El Chapo, Rolf Petersen plays Ramón Avendaño.
Arellano Félix is portrayed by Manuel Masalva in the 2018 crime drama, .