Public Safety

U.S. Treasury Freezes Assets of Alleged Arellano Felix Associate

By Amy Isackson / Border Reporter

Published October 22, 2009 at 12:28 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The US Treasury Department has frozen the assets of a Tijuana man who was allegedly a personal assistant to the Arellano Felix drug cartel's former leader.

U.S. federal officials allege Edgardo Leyva had a close relationship with Francisco Javier Arellano Felix who lead the cartel until he was arrested on a fishing boat off La Paz, Mexico.

Officials say it was Leyva who bought the boat for Francisco Javier.

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US treasury will punish anyone doing business with Leyva, his maritime store in La Paz, or five associates with a million dollar fine.

Court documents say Leyva bought tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition at San Diego and Santee gun stores for the cartel.

Three years ago, federal agents searched Leyva's home in Chula Vista and found machine gun kits, pistol grips and high quality bugging devices.

Federal prosecutors filed a complaint against Leyva a few months later. It's not clear why the U.S. Treasury is freezing Leyva's assets three years later. U.S. treasury officials did not respond to phone messages.

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Amy Isackson

Amy Isackson was the border reporter at KPBS from 2004 to 2011. She covered breaking news and feature stories on California-Mexico border issues and immigration, for local and national broadcast. Amy got her start in public radio by pitching a series of stories about rural New Zealand - horse dentistry and sheep sheering - to Radio New Zealand's "Country Life" program. She then worked with Peabody Award-winning radio producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, to help create the Sonic Memorial, a series of stories on the World Trade Center before, during and after 9/11. Amy's work has been recognized with awards from the Associated Press Television-Radio Association of California and Nevada, the California Chicano News Media Association, and the San Diego Press Club. She won the Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism in 2009 from the Society of Professional Journalists for her story about high school students smuggling people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to venturing into the wonderful world of public radio, Amy worked for Yahoo! Inc. for nearly five years as an editorial surfer, associate producer and broadcast communications manager. She majored in Latin American History at Williams College. She grew up in San Diego and made frequent trips south of the border.

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