Cartel figure set to plead guilty in San Diego

SAN DIEGO — Mexico’s Arellano Felix drug cartel was near the height of its power in March 2000 when one of its top men, Jesus “Chuy” Labra, was arrested watching his son’s soccer game at a school in Tijuana.

Now, as Labra prepares to plead guilty Thursday in a San Diego criminal case, the gang he once helped lead is in a diminished state.

Labra was extradited to the United States from Mexico on the last day of 2008 to face drug, racketeering and money laundering charges. A federal court docket says Labra will change his plea but does not say on which charges.

Labra tapped extensive connections with Colombian cocaine traffickers and Mexican marijuana growers and regularly participated in the cartel’s major decisions, according to the 2003 indictment.

He is accused of smuggling marijuana across the border to the United States beginning in the 1970s. Labra later moved into cocaine when Colombian suppliers shifted trafficking routes from the Caribbean and Florida to ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, said John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor who co-wrote the indictment.

“He was one of the people who knew how to move stuff across the border,” Kirby said.

At the time of his arrest, Labra and two others who were also indicted in 2003 made the cartel’s key decisions about where to buy drugs and how to get them to the U.S., Kirby said. Benjamin Arellano Felix was arrested in 2002 in Mexico, and U.S. authorities have been trying to get him extradited for years. Manuel Aguirre Galindo is at large.

The Arellano Felix has seen its grip on drug smuggling along the California-Mexico border slowly erode since 2002, when Benjamin was captured and Ramon Arellano Felix was killed. Ramon had a reputation has a ruthless killer.

Labra, a Mexican citizen, and nine others were extradited Dec. 31, bringing the number of suspects sent from Mexico to 95 in 2008, the highest ever.

Labra’s attorney initially challenged the extradition, saying a treaty between the U.S. and Mexico requires that a verdict first be reached on criminal charges that Labra faced in Mexico. Labra had been in Mexican prison for nearly nine years when he was extradited.

“I assume the Mexicans are probably happy not to deal with him,” Kirby said. “They don’t need the headache.”