The Tijuana Cartel (, ), formerly also known as the Arellano-Félix Cartel (, CAF), is a Mexican cartel based in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Founded by the Arellano-Félix family, the cartel once was described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico". However, since the 2006 Sinaloa Cartel incursion into Baja California and the fall of the Arellano-Félix brothers, the Tijuana Cartel has been reduced to a few cells. In 2016, the organization became known as Cartel Tijuana Nueva Generación (New Generation Tijuana Cartel) and began to align itself under the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, along with the Beltrán-Leyva Organization (BLO) to create an anti-Sinaloa alliance, which the Jalisco New Generation Cartel heads. This alliance has since dwindled as the Tijuana, Jalisco New Generation, and Sinaloa cartels battle each other for access to drug trafficking routes in the city of Tijuana and throughout Baja California.
History Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, was arrested in 1989. While incarcerated, he remained one of Mexico's major traffickers, maintaining his organization via mobile phone until he was transferred to a new maximum security prison in the 1990s. At that point, his old organization broke up into three factions: the Tijuana Cartel led by his nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, the Juarez Cartel, led by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and the Sinaloa Cartel, run by former lieutenants Héctor Luis Palma Salazar and Joaquín Guzmán Loera, a.k.a. El Chapo.
Currently, the majority of Mexico's smuggling routes are controlled by three key cartels: Gulf, Sinaloa and Tijuana—though Tijuana is the least powerful. 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. Mexican army troops 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. 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. 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. 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.
The Mexican federal government responded by implementing "Operation Tijuana", a coordination carried out between the Mexican military and the municipal police forces in the area. To put down the violence, InSight Crime states that a pact was probably created between military officials and members of the Sánchez Arellano faction to eliminate Simental's group. The U.S. authorities speculated in 2009 that Tijuana's former police boss, Julián Leyzaola, had made agreements with Sánchez Arellano to bring relative peace in Tijuana. With the arrest of El Teo in January 2010, much of his faction was eliminated from the city of Tijuana; some of its remains went off and joined with the Sinaloa Cartel. But much of the efforts done between 2008 and 2010 in Tijuana would not have been possible without the coordination of local police forces and the Mexican military – and possibly with a cartel truce – to put down the violence.
The relative peace in the city of Tijuana in 2010–2012 has raised speculations of a possible agreement between the Tijuana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel to maintain peace in the area. According to Mexican and U.S. authorities, most of Tijuana is under the dominance of the Sinaloa cartel, while Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano of the Tijuana cartel remains the "head of that puppet empire". To be exact, experts told InSight Crime that the peace exists because Joaquín Guzmán Loera wants it that way, and argued that his organization—the Sinaloa Cartel—has become spread too thin with its wars with Los Zetas and the Juárez Cartel and that opening a third war would be inconvenient. The Tijuana cartel, however, has something their rivals do not have: a long-time family with business and political connections throughout the city. InSight Crime believes that this could explain why the Sinaloa cartel has left Sánchez Arellano as the figurehead, since it might be too costly for El Chapo financially and politically to make a final push. Moreover, the Tijuana cartel charges a toll ("piso") on the Sinaloa cartel for trafficking drugs in their territory, which serves as an illustration of the Tijuana cartel's continued hegemony as a local group. Despite the series of high-ranking arrests the cartel suffered throughout 2011–2012, its ability to maintain a highly centralized criminal infrastructure shows how difficult it is to uproot cartels who have long established their presence in a community.
Despite being a shell of what it once was in the early 2000s, the group appears to retain significant control in the state of Baja California, as of 2020.
In June 2020, it was reported that the Sinaloa Cartel controlled much of the Tijuana Cartel's former territory. Around this time, the Tijuana Cartel formed an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which resulted in the cartel being rebranded as the Tijuana New Generation Cartel (Cartel de Tijuana Nueva Generación), but this alliance disintegrated very quickly when the Jalisco Cartel showed it intended to take the place of the Sinaloa Cartel rather than aid in helping the Tijuana Cartel reestablish dominance and independence. As a result, the Tijuana Cartel reversed their branding back to Cartel Arellano Félix. Afterwards, they planned the assassination of Cabo 33, the Jalisco Cartel's head of operations in Baja California. After effectively removing the Jalisco Cartel's influence in Baja California, the Tijuana Cartel further engaged the Sinaloa Cartel for control of the Tijuana plaza and surrounding areas. With the release of Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano in 2023 and the consolidation of power in Baja California, as well as an alliance with Rafael Caro Quintero and the Sonora plaza, it is speculated that the Tijuana Cartel may rise again to become a dominant player in Baja California.
In November 2020 it was reported emissaries from the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel had been seen in Tijuana attempting to form an alliance with the now resurgent Tijuana Cartel. Following the defection of El Mayo's head of operations in Tijuana and the reintegration of its Cabo San Lucas branch, the Arellano-Félix Organization has retaken control of Tijuana from outside influences as well as other important hubs in Baja California, leaving Mexicali and Rosarito as the last known Sinaloa Cartel outposts in Baja California. How long they will remain under the cartel's control is unknown, with the rapid defection of Sinaloa Cartel operatives in traditionally Arellano-Félix territories.
Organization The Arellano Félix family was initially composed of seven brothers and four sisters, who inherited the organization from Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo upon his incarceration in Mexico in 1989 for his complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. The brothers' death and arrests during the 2000s impacted the Arellano Félix cartel, but they did not dismantle the organization.Luis Ramirez Vazquez
The Tijuana Cartel has infiltrated the Mexican law enforcement and judicial systems and is directly involved in street-level trafficking within the United States. This criminal organization is responsible for the transportation, importation, and distribution of multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana, as well as large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine.
The organization has a reputation for extreme violence. Ramón Arellano Félix ordered a hit which resulted in the mass murder of 18 people in Ensenada, Baja California, on September 17, 1998. Ramón was eventually killed in a gun battle with police at Mazatlán in Sinaloa, on February 10, 2002.
The Arellano Félix family has seven brothers: Rafael Arellano Félix† (born 24 October 1949) – captured (1993), released (2008), murdered on 18 October 2013 Benjamín Arellano Félix (born 12 March 1952) – captured on March 9, 2002, extradited on April 29, 2011 Carlos Arellano Félix (born 20 August 1955) – not currently wanted Eduardo Arellano Félix (born 11 October 1956) – captured on October 26, 2008, extradited on August 31, 2012 Ramón Arellano Félix† (born 31 August 1964) – deceased, shot by police in February 2002 Luis Fernando Arellano Félix (believed to be born 26 January 1966) – not currently wanted Javier Arellano Félix (born 11 December 1969) – captured in August 2006
They also have four sisters, of whom Alicia and Enedina are most active in the cartel's affairs.
Eduardo Arellano Félix was captured by the Mexican Army after a shootout in Tijuana on October 26, 2008; he had been the last of the Arellano Félix brothers at large. Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano took over the cartel's operations. His two top lieutenants were Armando Villareal Heredia and Edgardo Leyva Escandon. Fernando Sánchez Arellano was arrested by Mexican police in June 2014.Mexican drug cartel boss Luis Fernando Sanchez Arellano nabbed – CBC, 24 June 2014 Leyva remains at large and Villareal was captured in July 2011.
On November 5, 2011, Mexican troops arrested cartel lieutenant Francisco Sillas Rocha, who was reported to be the cartel's number two leader, and some of his close associates. Observers argued that Rocha's arrest put the Tijuana Cartel "on the ropes", though some differed on whether or not the arrest put "the final nail in the coffin" for the Tijuana Cartel.
In February 2020, senior cartel operator Octavio Leal Hernández, also known as "Chapito Leal," was arrested with seven others by Tijuana police for stealing cars from a used-car dealership at gunpoint and possessing marijuana.
Activities The Tijuana cartel is present in at least 15 Mexican states, with important areas of operation in Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, and Ensenada in Baja California, in parts of Sinaloa, and in Zacatecas. After the death in 1997 of the Juárez Cartel's Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Tijuana Cartel attempted to gain a foothold in Sonora. The Oaxaca Cartel reportedly joined forces with the Tijuana Cartel in 2003.