SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Jose Rodrigo Arechiga Gamboa, known as “El Chino Ántrax,” was a notorious assassin for the Sinaloa cartel, but he also had a flair for getting drugs across the border, University of San Diego Professor Everard Meade said.
Meade heads up the school’s Trans-Border Institute and continues to work with social and mentoring programs for youth and underprivileged families in the Mexiccan state of Sinaloa. He is well versed in the Sinaloa cartel and knows all about the exploits of “Chino Ántrax.”
Meade explained how Arechiga devised an ingenious plan to use trucking companies to export drugs across the border into the U.S.
“He set up a network of legitimate businesses that had tractor trailers-destined to cross the border so that the trucks that were carrying mostly marijuana had proper paperwork sail through the border,” said Meade.
‘Chapo’ hitman ‘Chino Ántrax’ vanishes from custody in California
Meade said the industrious side of Arechiga helped make him a big-time player within the cartel, but his willingness to murder people is what made him a notorious legend.
“He ends up heading this faction of assassins for the cartels, ‘Los Ántrax,’ they’re involved in the bloodiest confrontations in the last decade in Mexico,” Meade said. “That’s just killing people, putting together groups or platoons of armed men to go to war. ‘Chino’ headed one of the most ruthless effective groups of those assassins.”
Arechiga would go on to defend the Sinaloa cartel’s interests for many years.
Along the way, Meade says “El Chino Ántrax” loved to display his money and lavish lifestyle.
“They were very flamboyant, they were full of themselves with weapons, all kinds of luxury items, they really flaunted and bragged about what they had. He even commissioned songs about his exploits,” Meade said.
In 2013, Arechiga was arrested in Holland and brought to San Diego for prosecution.
He pleaded guilty to importing and distributing drugs and received a seven-year sentence, getting released from custody in March.
Two weeks ago, while on five-years probation, he disappeared from his home in San Diego County and fled to Mexico.
Fugitive ‘Chapo’ hitman allegedly murdered in suspected Sinaloa cartel double-cross
Arechiga, his sister and brother-in-law were found shot to death inside an SUV in the Mexican state of Sinaloa where he grew up and went to work for the cartel.
“He gave evidence against the cartel and tried to return to Sinaloa and they killed him,” Meade said.
Listen to Everard Meade’s fascinating interview about “Chino Antrax” and the Sinaloa Cartel.
