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The cartel responded quickly to the news, whisking Ramon's body away from the morgue before it could be positively tagged. But the task force had continued to nurture a network of informants, and it paid off. One obtained phone numbers of cell phones found at the scene of the shooting, and slipped them to Hook's team.Things moved fast after that. Recent calls from the phones were traced to an exclusive enclave in Puebla, on the outskirts of Mexico City. Mexican agents had tracked a money courier for the cartel to that town, too, and there had been eyewitness accounts of a little girl who had a deformed chin and whose family had just moved into a tony house in a quiet cul-de-sac -- a girl who bore a strong resemblance to Benjamin's daughter.
Neighbors had assumed that the owner of the house was just an ordinary businessman and father. But after a few weeks of surveillance, law enforcement knew that "Manuel Trevino" was only the latest cover for a drug lord whose empire was crumbling.
On March 9, 2002, at 1 a.m., a group of Mexican commandos broke down the door to the three-bedroom manse. They rushed in, past a shrine adorned with lit candles and a picture of Ramon, past stacks of money on the floor.
There, roused from bed where his wife still lay, was Benjamin Arellano. At first he looked dazed, uncomprehending, as the handcuffs were slapped on him, but soon he grew resigned. Not a shot had been fired.
Jack Hook was asleep in San Diego when his phone rang at 2 a.m. Within minutes, he was relaying the good news to his team. Then he sat back, his adrenaline pumping, far too excited to go back to sleep. Instead he started mapping out his next steps -- getting a provisional arrest warrant for Benjamin, trying to extradite the drug lord to the United States.
Three thousand miles away, in Washington, Heidi Landgraf also got word and was quickly summoned to DEA headquarters.
She was elated and stunned. "I always thought Ramon might go down," she later told a reporter. "But Benjamin? Never in a million years."
Benjamin was taken away to La Palma, a maximum security prison outside Mexico City, where he remains today. Hook knows that hurdles remain before he'll see Benjamin on trial in an American courtroom. For one thing, a recent ruling by the Mexican Supreme Court forbids extradition in cases where the prisoner faces the death penalty or life in prison.
But for Hook, it isn't enough to see the AFO dismantled. He wants justice. "You have to believe that, one day, you're going to put the arm on them all," he says. So, on July 8, 2003, federal officials unsealed two indictments against the AFO, charging Benjamin and his network with racketeering, trafficking and murder. Individually, these charges might not mean the death penalty or life in prison, so they may get around the Mexican ban.
With a bit more luck, Hook will be on hand to receive the biggest Arellano shipment across the border: that of the cartel itself.
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