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Border & Immigration

San Diego Trial Begins for Alleged Drug Gang Leaders

By Adrian Florido / Border Reporter
Published March 26, 2013 at 9:45 AM PDT
This story was published more than 11 years ago.
San Diego Trial Begins for Alleged Drug Gang Leaders
The defendants are alleged members of a splinter group of Tijuana's Arellano-Felix cartel.

Lawyers delivered opening statements today in the trial of two alleged Mexican drug gang leaders accused of up to nine murders in San Diego.

Jorge Rojas Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez are being tried for murders that occurred between 2004 and 2007. Some of the victims’ bodies were dissolved in acid.

The defendants are alleged leaders of Los Palillos, described as a mini cartel made up of defectors from Tijuana’s much larger Arellano-Felix Cartel.

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Prosecutors say Los Palillos, which means "The Toothpicks," used a network of houses in Chula Vista and San Diego to smuggle drugs, hold kidnapping victims ransom and murder them.

The two defendants now on trial are already serving life sentences for earlier convictions including kidnapping.

Their trial in San Diego Superior Court is expected to last up to a year.

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Border & Immigration Drug WarCalifornia
Adrian Florido
Adrian Florido is a reporter for the Fronteras Desk where he covers the U.S.-Mexico border, immigrant and tribal communities, demographics, and culture. Before joining KPBS, he was a staff writer at Voice of San Diego. There he reported on San Diego neighborhoods, focusing on immigrant and under-served communities as well as development, planning, land use, and transportation. For a year, he delivered a weekly television segment on NBC San Diego. He's a Southern California native who moved to San Diego in 2009 after earning an undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago. He majored in history with an emphasis on the US and Latin America. In college he was news editor of the student paper, the Chicago Maroon, and also spent time reporting from Capitol Hill and working with the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. He also likes to eat. A lot. And he likes to run to keep up his appetite. And he likes good music.
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