One of the main operators in a drug cartel war that devastated the border city of Tijuana was captured by federal troops after he opened fire on a car carrying two rivals over the weekend, officials said on Monday.
Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, 34, allegedly reported directly to the head of the Arellano Felix cartel, which controlled the smuggling of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs through the cities of Tijuana and Mexicali into the US during the 1990s, according to Mexican officials.
The cartel was weakened in the past decade by the capture or killing of the brothers who led it. The powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which controls many of the smuggling routes along the border, has reportedly tried to seize control of criminal activities in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Fernando “The Engineer” Sanchez Arellano, a nephew who now heads the Arellano Felix cartel, ordered Sillas to regain control of Tijuana from rival leader Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, who had broken from the Arellano Felix group and reportedly rose through the Sinaloa ranks by ordering bodies dissolved in vats of lye.
Fighting between the factions sent violence skyrocketing in Tijuana from 2007 to 2009, and decapitations, hangings and daylight shootouts became common.
Violence subsided considerably after Simental’s arrest in January last year, although attacks still occur regularly.
Army spokesman Colonel Ricardo Trevilla said Sillas shot and wounded two unidentified rivals driving through Tijuana on Saturday. Police and soldiers captured him after cordoning off the area.
Sillas, who was paraded before a press conference on Monday, is presumed responsible for last year’s kidnapping of three women in the family of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who leads the Sinaloa cartel along with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, one of the most-wanted men in the world. Sillas was believed to be retaliating for the disappearance of his sister that year.
Trevilla said Sillas’ arrest would “considerably affect the Arellano Felix organization’s criminal activities.”
Also on Monday, police found the heads of two men in a residential area of Mexico City. Police found the bodies inside a stolen car not far from there, prosecutors said.
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