MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — Federal authorities deployed a large group of officers and soldiers to lock down the border city while they transported a former Tijuana Cartel boss from Texas.
The large security operation took place on Monday afternoon following the deportation of Eduardo “El Doctor” Arellano Felix, one of the leaders of the Tijuana Cartel. Arellano Felix had been serving a 15-year prison sentence since 2013. However, Arellano Felix’s U.S. incarceration was shortened after allegedly cooperating with U.S. authorities.
Following the end of his sentence last week, federal authorities transported Arellano Felix to Brownsville, Texas, where under heavy guard they walked him across Gateway International Bridge and turned him over to officers from Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM).
After a short time at an INM office, Mexican federal authorities loaded Arellano Felix into an SUV and drove off in a large convoy of armored vehicles with snipers riding on helicopters for aerial support.
Mexican soldiers blocked off all streets along the route from the international port of entry through the city and further south to the airport, where authorities boarded the drug lord and transferred him to a Mexican prison.
According to a short statement from Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, Arellano Felix had an outstanding warrant for engaging in organized crime, drug trafficking, and criminal associations.
Arellano Felix is one of several brothers who led the Tijuana Cartel from the 1990s and into the 2000s. The criminal organization revolutionized the use of tunnels from Tijuana to California. The Arellano Felix organization has been a bitter rival of the Sinaloa Cartel and most recently joined with Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion to continue their longstanding turf war.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “J.A. Espinoza” from Tamaulipas.