Tijuana Drug Cartel Brothers Plead Guilty in U.S. Federal Court
By Daniel Hawn
Published on May 02, 2007
In their plea agreements, Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, 39, and his brother, Ismael Higuera Guerrero, 46, entered guilty pleas in exchange for lesser prison sentences. The brothers admitted to being high-ranking cartel lieutenants in what was once the powerful Arellano-Felix drug trafficking organization, which ruthlessly controlled drug flow through the California-Mexico border for almost 20 years.
The plea deals also require the brothers to forfeit a combined $6 million in profits from the drug trade.
The pleas, together with the arrests of six other leaders of the cartel, are breaking down the network that was once so terrifying, said Karen Tandy of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The Higuera brothers also made astonishing admissions about the cartel’s violent methods and admitted to the bribery, kidnap, torture and murder of rivals, informants, and police officials for the Arellano brothers, including fellow defendant Francisco Javier Arellano Felix.
Criminal defense lawyer Geoffrey Morrison, who has represented various alleged drug cartel members in the past, said the brothers are the highest-ranking members of the Arellano Felix organization that authorities have ever had.
The brothers were indicted by a federal grand jury in San Diego in 1998, and extradited to the U.S. this past January on the condition that federal officials would not seek the death penalty.
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