Eduardo Arellano Félix To Be Released In Two Days, No Warrants For His Rearrest

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat

The former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, Eduardo Arellano Felix, alias “El Doctor”, will be released from a prison in the United States and deported back to Mexico on August 18, 2021. 

Sources inside the Mexican federal government revealed to Milenio newspaper that there are still no arrest warrant granted for the drug trafficker who will be released in two days. 

His Prior Arrest and Proceedings

Eduardo Arellano has spent the last ten year within a US prison on charges he was convicted of related to drug trafficking. He was arrested back in August 2008 in Tijuana city, Baja California during an operation led by the Federal Police. The operation turned into an all out gunfight between the federal officers and members of the Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano-Félix Cartel (Cártel Arellano Félix, CAF). 

The house where Eduardo was arrested in 2008. It was registered under the name of his nephew, Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano.

The original intention of the operation was not to capture Eduardo Arellano but rather for an unrelated objective, so following the surrender of the cartel members, the federal agents were surprised to find the drug kingpin amongst the detainees. The undersecretary of the federal Public Security Secretariat (SSP) admitted that because they had not lined up a prior investigation on Eduardo Arellano, all they were able to charge him within a "timely manner" was the flagrancy,  which is to say, the crimes he had committed during the operation. 

Undersecretary Facundo Rosas said that “what you have in a very precise manner is... the crimes he committed for the possession of firearms." The firearm found to be in Eduardo Arellano’s possession at the time of his arrest was an AK-47 style firearm. In his official statements before law enforcement, Eduardo Arellano made himself responsible for the crimes of stockpiling, carrying and firing said firearm. 

Eduardo Arellano was then incarcerated in Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya de Juarez and the process behind his extradition for an existing US arrest warrant began. After five long years of legal proceedings, in 2012, he was extradited from Altiplano prison to the United States. 

Eduardo Arellano being escorted after pleading guilty in the US.

In the United States, Eduardo Arellano was found guilty of various crimes related to drug trafficking. As a result, he received a 15 year sentence from a California judge. 

Fifteen years was far below what the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of California was asking for at the time however Eduardo Arellano had reached a cooperation agreement with authorities to only be prosecuted for two of the seven crimes for which he was accused, pleading guilty to money laundering. and conspiracy for the use of illicit profits.

His Impending Release

Eduardo Arellano will be released from Allenwood prison in Pennsylvania on August 18, 2021, where he served out only 8 years of the 15 years to which he was sentenced

The Federal Judiciary Council's records page shows that on June 4, 2021, Eduardo Arellano filed an injunction before Mexico City's Third District Judge for Protection in Criminal Matters (Amparo en Materia Penal). This injunction was based on the grounds of protecting him against “acts depriving him of his liberty and arrest warrants, re-arrest and/or appearance and/or presentation, as well as their execution.” However, on July 7, 2021, his injunction was denied. 

With no pending accounts with the law and no arrest warrant granted, Eduardo Arellano may reenter Mexico and move freely within the country, despite the fact that he was previously wanted in more than 180 countries since 2004, owing to his criminal file in Interpol.

Because he may not be apprehended upon reentry into Mexico, he could disappear from the radar of law enforcement. Through secretly and frequently traveling between a series of mansions, he may be free to live out his days undetected by law enforcement. 

Eduardo Arellano is not the only historical leader of a drug cartel to be released this year.  Sinaloa Cartel’s Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, alias "El Güero Palma"  was released in May of this year after being acquitted for the crime of organized crime. Authorities however managed to keep him in prison through a series of legal maneuvers and after consulting for weeks with prosecutors, they were able to bring up charges related to organized crime that resulted in him being transferred back to Altiplano prison. 

Sources: Milenio, El Heraldo de Mexico, Today.in-24, Poresto!, Sopitas, Infobae