Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix, the eldest of five brothers who control the drug cartel in Tijuana, is back in Mexico after being freed from a United States prison this week, Mexican authorities said. He was released at a border crossing in El Paso and walked to Mexican soil, where family members met him, ushered him into a sedan and drove off. The authorities say there are no outstanding charges against him in Mexico. For years, Mr. Arellano Félix, 58, ran the powerful Tijuana cartel, known for ruthless killings and the smuggling of tons of cocaine. Mexican authorities arrested him in 1993 and sentenced him to 11 years in prison, and he stayed in prison two more years while he fought extradition to the United States. He was finally transferred to the United States in 2006 and convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover agent in 1980. He served a year and five months in an American prison. Two of his brothers are currently in prison, one died in a shootout in 2002 and one is at largeFrancisco Rafael Arellano Felix was sentenced to six years in federal prison last year in San Diego on cocaine charges from a 1980 drug bust. He was returned to Mexico Tuesday after getting credit for time served in Mexican prison while he awaited extradition, said Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney. Arellano Felix faces no charges in Mexico, said an official with Mexico's Attorney General office on condition of anonymity. The official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution, said Arellano Felix returned through Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border city across from El Paso, Texas. Arellano Felix, a Mexican citizen, was extradited in 2006 after serving a decade-long sentence in Mexico on unrelated weapons charges. The deportation "reflects the conclusion of a cooperative effort between the United States and Mexico to ensure that he faced justice for crimes committed on both sides of the border," Sweeney said. Arellano Felix pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine and one count of possessing about half a pound of the drug with the intent to distribute it. He sold it to an undercover narcotics agent at a San Diego motel, authorities said. He was arrested while counting cash from the transaction, but fled to Mexico the following month after being released on $150,000 bond. His 2006 extradition came a month after Arellano Felix's younger brother, Francisco Javier, was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard aboard a sport-fishing yacht in international waters off La Paz, Mexico, and taken to San Diego to face drug charges. The younger Arellano Felix pleaded guilty in September to running a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to launder money. Prosecutors said he agreed to plead guilty after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agreed not to pursue the death penalty. U.S. authorities have requested the extradition of Benjamin Arellano Felix, who was captured in 2002 in Puebla, Mexico, east of Mexico City. He is being held in a Mexican jail. Another brother, Ramon Arellano Felix, was shot to death the same year in the Pacific tourist port of Mazatlan.
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