Benjamín Arellano Félix was captured in 2002 and extradited in 2011.
With this decision, the Sinaloa drug trafficker will have to serve the remainder of his sentence in a Virginia prison, which ends in 2033.
It seems that the U.S. authorities are a real punishment for Mexican drug traffickers, because while Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is seeking to be repatriated to Mexico, another drug lord was trying to obtain his early release.
He is Benjamin Arellano Felix, former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, who for years was a bitter enemy of Chapo. In 2022, he asked the U.S. authorities to reduce his 25-year sentence, and now he has received bad news from a federal judge.
Judge Larry Alan Burns, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, denied the release and justified this decision in the crimes committed by the drug lord.
“Arellano deserves the severe punishment imposed by the court,” said the judge, recalling that one of the two federal charges to which Arellano pleaded guilty alleged that he personally directed the murder of 10 people between 1992 and 1997.
But that’s not all, as he also assured that in previous years he would have sentenced the criminal leader to life in prison if his plea agreement had not limited the sentence to 25 years, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“As the organization’s leader for more than two decades, Arellano oversaw a vast and lucrative drug trafficking organization whose members engaged in torture, kidnapping and murder. His leadership was ruthless, vicious and inhumane,” the judge added in a 14-page brief.
With this decision, the Sinaloa drug trafficker must serve the remainder of his sentence at USP Lee prison in Jonesville, Virginia, which ends on April 28, 2033.
Benjamín Arellano Félix was captured in 2002 in the state of Puebla. Later, in 2011, he was extradited to the United States, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking and murder.