FORMER MEXICAN SOCCER star Jared Borgetti and boxer Omar Chavez attended a party where a former drug lord was killed by a gunman disguised as a clown two weeks ago, an official said Thursday.
Borgetti and Chavez have given statements to investigators since the murder of Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix in the west coast resort of Cabo San Lucas, said Gamill Arreola, attorney general of the state of Baja California Sur.
Arellano Felix, 63, was the eldest brother in a once powerful crime family that ran the Tijuana drug cartel but that has since seen most siblings sent to jail or killed.
Chavez is the son of boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez, while Borgetti played in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups and is the national team’s all-time scorer with 46 goals.
“They attended the (October 18) party where Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix was murdered,” Arreola said, refusing to give more details because the investigation is ongoing.
Prosecutors have heard more than 40 statements from witnesses who said a man dressed up as a clown gunned down Arellano Felix at a party in his honor.
The Arellano Felix brothers once dominated drug trafficking between Mexico and California through their brutal Tijuana cartel in the early 1990s and 2000s.
Their life inspired characters in the Steven Soderbergh movie “Traffic.”
But most of the brothers have been either killed or arrested, leaving the cartel in tatters. Infighting also weakened the group. Nicknamed “El Menso” (The Dummy), Francisco Rafael was arrested in 1980 in San Diego, California, for allegedly selling drugs, but slipped back to Mexico when he was released on bail.
In 1993 he was arrested in Mexico and jailed on drug charges. In 2006 he was extradited to the United States and was sentenced to six years in jail after confessing to selling drugs to an undercover agent.
In 2008 he was released, earning time off his sentence for good behavior, according to his attorney at the time, and repatriated to Mexico.
