Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix

His father was from the state of Durango but emigrated to Sinaloa, where he met his wife, in the 1940s.

The couple had eleven children, Francisco Rafael being the eldest of his seven brothers (Benjamín, Carlos Alberto, Eduardo, Ramón Eduardo, Luis Fernando, Francisco Javier) and four sisters (Alicia María, Enedina, Norma Isabel and Leticia).

He also had two half-brothers, Jesús and Manuel Arellano, but their second surnames remain confidential.

Francisco Rafael grew up in a modest house in Miguel Hidalgo St. #566 in Culiacán, blocks away from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, and lived there for about 20 years.

Neighbors recall that the Arellano Félix brothers were "cheerful boys" without addictions and inclined to selling clothes, licor, and candy that they brought illegally from the United States.

Francisco Rafael went to "Álvaro Obregón" elementary school a couple of streets away from their house.

He later attended "Emilio Obeso" middle school in the same neighborhood.

At a young age, Francisco Rafael dropped out of middle school to help out his father, a mechanic.

Alongside his brothers Benjamín and Ramón, however, he also smuggled contraband from Tijuana.

His affinity towards music led him and his two brothers to form a musical group known as "Sonido Escorpión" and later renamed as "Los Escorpiones".

Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix (24 October 1949 – 18 October 2013) was a Mexican drug lord and former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, a drug trafficking organization.

Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, on 24 October 1949, to Benjamín Francisco Arellano Sánchez (father) and Norma Alicia Félix Zazueta (mother).

By the 1970s, his family moved to Guadalajara, Jalisco, but Francisco Rafael stayed in Culiacán, where he owned an event center known as "El Chaplín".

He then moved years later to Mazatlán and opened a discothèque, "Frankie Oh".

The discothèque was a major nightlife attraction in Mazatlán during the mid-1980s.

With an estimated US$5 million investment to build it, "Frankie Oh" had the capacity to host 2,500 people; it had an internal waterfall and a large dance floor surrounded by a fish tank.

The nightclub's theme also mirrored a zoo because it had several exotic animals, including two lions, in the entrances and in the surroundings.

The only non-living animal was a giant metal statue of a scorpion which was both a water fountain and the logo of the nightclub.

Francisco Rafael usually carried a diamond-encrusted scorpion necklace in reference to his astrological sign, the Scorpio.

The disco hosted several famous Mexican and international artists, including but not limited to Luis Miguel, Emmanuel, Mijares, and Nelson Ned, Ricardo Montaner, among others.

It also hosted car and motorcycle shows where Francisco Rafael performed with his Harley-Davidson.

With his popularity rising in Mazatlán, he was named "Businessman of the Year" by a local radio station.

Aside from managing the disco, Francisco Rafael organized beauty contests, sports tournaments, and made frequent appearances in social magazines.

He was a close friend of former World Champion Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez, whom he considered as close as a brother of his.

Francisco Rafael lived most of his early life as a businessman and playboy while his brothers, Benjamín and Ramón, became involved in the drug trade after moving to Tijuana in the 1980s.

Through his brother Benjamín, Francisco Rafael joined the Tijuana Cartel in 1989 following the arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, one of the most prominent drug czars in Mexico during the 1980s.

Benjamín worked with the drug trafficker Javier Caro Payán (cousin of Rafael Caro Quintero), who later fled to Canada after Félix Gallardo was arrested in 1989 and after he feared a coup from the Arellano Félix.

With the leadership void open, Benjamín started to work full-time with his uncle Labra Avilés; Francisco Rafael, Ramón, and Javier later join them in Tijuana.

The arrest of Félix Gallardo led to the disintegration of the Guadalajara Cartel into several drug trafficking organizations: in the western coast, a faction formed the Sinaloa Cartel; in the Ciudad Juárez border area, another group formed the Juárez Cartel; and in the Baja California border region, others formed the so-called Tijuana Cartel, which was formed by the Arellano Félix clan and lieutenants previously loyal to Félix Gallardo in the area.

In December 1989, the Arellano Félix ordered their gunmen to decimate the Machi Ramírez, a once-prominent crime family that controlled the drug trade in Tijuana prior to their arrival.

He was the oldest of seven brothers and headed the criminal organization early in the 1990s alongside them.

When the Arellano Félix took control of the organization in the early 1990s, tensions with the rival Sinaloa Cartel prompted violent attacks and slayings from both fronts.

Francisco Rafael was first married to Victoria Barrionuevo and had three children (Francisco, Benjamín Arellano Barrionuevo, and an unnamed daughter); after separating and divorcing, he remarried, to Rocío del Carmen Lizárraga Lizárraga, whom he abducted several months after she was declared Carnival Queen of Mazatlán just after her 18th birthday in May 1990.

Francisco Rafael's maternal aunt, Agustina Félix Zazueta, married Jesús Labra Avilés (alias "El Chuy"), a drug trafficker under the tutelage of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel and a high-profile drug lord in Mexico.

Other sources say that the Arellano Félix brothers were nephews of the drug lord Félix Gallardo, who allegedly introduced them to the drug trade in Baja California.

The drug lord was arrested in 1993 in Tijuana, Baja California, and imprisoned at Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum security prison.

In 2006, he was extradited to the United States pending charges on drug trafficking in a California federal district court.

He was released from prison two years later and deported back to Mexico.

Back in his home country, Francisco Rafael had no other pending criminal charges.

While celebrating his birthday in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, on 18 October 2013, a gunman disguised as a clown shot him dead.