US deports Eduardo Arellano Felix, Mexico re-arrests him

One of the notorious Arellano Felix brothers has been deported from the United States back to Mexico after serving most of a 15-year prison sentence

MEXICO CITY -- One of the notorious Arellano Felix brothers was deported from the United States back to Mexico after serving most of a 15-year prison sentence, but he was promptly re-arrested when he arrived in his homeland Monday. Prosecutors in Mexico said Eduardo Arellano Felix was handed over to Mexican federal authorities at a border crossing in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. He faces organized crime and drug trafficking charges in Mexico. He was one of several brothers who founded the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel that moved hundreds of tons of cocaine and marijuana from Mexico and Colombia into the United States. Known for its violent and brutal control of the drug trade in the border city of Tijuana in the 1990s, the arrests or death of most of the seven Arellano Felix brothers have reduced the cartel to a shadow of its former self. The family slowly lost its grip along California’s border with Mexico over the past decade, while the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels emerged as the most powerful groups in the highly coveted corridor for moving drugs to the United States.