wanted men in Mexico. They were repeatedly spotted in shopping malls and restaurants, and everybody seemed to know where they were but the cops.^[11]  As one investigation after another collapsed, Mexico City finally sent in an elite federal squad of untouchables under the respected commander Alejandro Castaneda. The new man had an immediate impact. In a series of lightning raids, Castaneda arrested two dozen cartel soldiers and seized millions of dollars in Arrellano assets.^[12]  The brothers were still at large but Castenada was breathing down their necks.

On the evening of March 3, 1994, Castenada and his team staked out a cartel safe house in upscale Tijuana. Just after eight, the gates opened and a red Chevy Suburban with tinted windows pulled onto the road heading downtown. Castenada and his crew followed in a pair of blue Suburbans, and as they cruised through traffic along Boulevard Diaz Ordaz, they came alongside the suspects and motioned the driver to pull over.  The caravan halted at a busy intersection ringed with shopping centers—BAM—the windows on the red Suburban disintegrated as gunmen inside opened fire with heavy weapons. Somehow all this flying lead missed Castenada, and he and his men returned fire as screaming pedestrians scattered like chickens.

This time Castenada had numbers on his side and his troops quickly overwhelmed the gunmen, killing three and wounding most of the others. As they handcuffed the survivors, Castenada realized they’d hit the jackpot. The 25-year-old kid he had face down on the pavement was Javier Arrellano Felix.  Just then, another squad of lawmen arrived.  A carload of Baja State Police piled out and one officer walked up to Castenada and shot him in the back with an AK 47. In the violent gun battle that followed, the federal troops were driven off. Young Javier Arrellano Felix was plucked from the sidewalk, hustled away from all this untidyness, and with the assistance of a Baja state attorney general, he was given safe passage back to the land of Oz.^[13]

Naturally there was a wave of public outrage at this grotesque betrayal, but it crashed without effect three weeks later—