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In August 1998, Hook was transferred to DEA headquarters in Washington, and handed off the challenge of nailing the Arellanos. It was Heidi Landgraf's turn.Landgraf had wanted to prove her grit early on in her DEA career, and she did more than that. For two years she posed as Heidi Herrera, a money launderer for Sicilian and Colombian crime families. Landgraf traveled the globe, meeting one-on-one with some of the world's most ruthless characters and running their cash through undercover bank accounts.
When the sting concluded, nearly 200 drug lords, their cadres and $50 million were seized. Landgraf and her colleagues in the operation were rewarded by having a $4 million bounty placed on their heads.
Shortly after, Landgraf joined the task force in San Diego, where she was charged with cracking the "narco juniors," the sons of wealthy Tijuana families who were captivated by the splashy lifestyle of the Arellanos.
Landgraf already knew what she was up against. Two years before, in 1996, Mexican police had picked up one narco junior, Alejandro Enrique Hodoyan, and forced him to talk. "The Arellanos give you a chance to work and they pay with favors," Hodoyan said. "They give you houses; they give you cars." More often than not, the work was murder. "They don't put a price on anyone's head, they just say, "F--- him," Hodoyan said. "Killing is a party, an amusement. After a murder they just laugh and drive down to Rosario for a lobster."
Hodoyan was eventually turned over to the task force, whose agents warned him that the AFO had put a mark on his head. But Hodoyan refused protection and returned to Tijuana in February 1997. He disappeared less than two weeks later.
While this sort of vengeance would chill the task force's informants, corruption in Mexico remained the biggest problem for Landgraf. The U.S. officials met regularly with their Mexican counterparts to pass intelligence and collaborate on strategy. But all too often it was a one-way street: Sensitive information would go south, but nothing ever came north.
"We'd all get together and make nice, exchanging pleasantries and information," an agent recalled. "Which is all well and good, except -- do something with the information!"
The frustration became so great that at one meeting with Mexican officials, the acting U.S. Attorney in San Diego, Charles La Bella, blew up. The reason the brothers were still in business, he yelled, was that the Mexican authorities refused to do anything about them.
Says one agent, "I think without saying it, the message from Chuck was: The reason you're not picking them up is because you're on the payroll."
Nothing seemed to be clicking for Landgraf. It surprised few people when, in April 2001, she accepted a transfer to Washington.
Jack Hook took the reins in San Diego again. If he was going to get the task force back on track, he'd need some breaks.
The first one came in the form of Vincente Fox, Mexico's newly elected president, who had campaigned on bringing down the drug cartels. Fox proved he was serious about it: He gave enforcement power to the military, always the least corrupt of Mexico's institutions, and ensured that only his most trusted aides would review sensitive information.
The second break was even bigger. On February 10, 2002, Ramon and a team of assassins were traveling to Mazatlán to murder a rival drug lord, Ismael Zimbada, when guns were turned on them instead. Officially, a shootout took place after Ramon's Volkswagen Beetle zoomed the wrong way down a one-way street. But some investigators believe Zambada's corrupt police simply struck first. Ramon was killed.
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