A 24-year-old man who was wanted on suspicion of running an organized crime ring in Baja California is being held in San Diego pending extradition to Mexico.
FBI agents from San Diego and Riverside arrested José Manuel Garibay Félix on Friday morning at a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Riverside County.
Garibay Félix had been living in Riverside with a sister.
Mexican authorities said Garibay Félix, who was born near Yuma, Ariz., frequently crossed between the United States and Mexico.
“It is a very important arrest,” said Agustín Pérez, a spokesman for the Baja California Public Safety Secretariat. “He is a very violent person.”
The Los Garibay organization used to be closely affiliated with the Arellano-Félix drug cartel, Pérez said. It now works for the Sinaloa drug cartel, he said.
Mexican authorities have requested Garibay Félix's extradition on kidnapping and murder charges, Pérez said.
An 11-page complaint on file in U.S. District Court says Garibay Félix and his relatives ran the organization out of the Los Garibay Ranch in the Mexicali Valley of Baja California.
At the ranch, they grew, packaged and shipped marijuana, the complaint says. They also made and sold methamphetamine.
The organization kidnapped and killed a police officer from the Public Prosecutor's Office, according to the complaint.
Garibay Félix has been on the run for at least five years, the report says.
A search of Garibay Félix's Baja ranch in 2002 turned up a stockpile of stolen weapons from the Mexican army, navy and air force.
Tony Manolatos: (619) 542-4559; tony.manolatos@uniontrib.com
