Assassin Dressed as a Clown Kills Mexican Drug Lord at Family Gathering

Daily Mail
October 20, 2013

Killed: Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix has been shot dead at a beach house.
Killed: Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix has been shot dead at a beach house.
A gunman wearing a clown costume has killed the oldest brother of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficking families in the resort of Los Cabos.

Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, 63, a former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, was shot in the head late on Friday at a family gathering in the southern tip of the state of Baja California Sur, state prosecutors said.

‘A person dressed as a clown took his life,’ the spokesman said, adding that the gunman fled the scene.

‘He was hit by two bullets, one in the chest and one in the head,’ Isai Arias, a Baja California state government official, said.

An unnamed official said the killer was wearing a wig and round red nose. The motive and the gunmen’s disguise were being investigated.

Local media reported that the killer had two accomplices when he attacked the former drug lord at a rented beach house, but this was not yet clear.

Arellano Felix spent nearly 15 years behind bars for drug-related offenses after his arrest in Mexico in 1993.

He was extradited to the U.S. in 2006 and after being granted parole and released he returned to Mexico in 2008.

‘He was never really part of the leadership of the big organization, mostly because he was in jail [in Mexico]. He was arrested before they became what they really became,’ John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego, who co-wrote a 2003 indictment against the cartel, said.

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