Head of Tijuana drug cartel arrested while watching Mexico's soccer team play Croatia in the World Cup - with his face painted red, white and green

• Fernando Sanchez Arellano, 42, was detained in the border city of Tijuana
• Was watching Mexico's last group game when the property was raided
• The huge drug operation inspired the Hollywood blockbuster Traffic
  
• DEA described him as a 'ghost', having evaded capture for years
  
• Was said to have flooded the U.S. with cocaine and heroin for a decade
  

By Wills Robinson

Published: 17:38 EST, 24 June 2014 | Updated: 09:52 EST, 26 June 2014

The head of a mighty Tijuana drug cartel has been arrested at a restaurant while watching Mexico's soccer team playing in the World Cup.

Fernando Sanchez Arellano, 42, who flooded the U.S. with cocaine and heroin for more than a decade, was detained in the border city of Tijuana after soldiers raided the premises in the middle of the game on Monday.

According to federal officials, Sanchez Arellano, known as 'The Engineer', had $100,000 in cash on him when he was taken away

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Captured: Fernando Sanchez Arellano, 42, known as 'The Engineer', was detained in the border city of Tijuana after soldiers raided the premises in the middle of Mexico's final group game

His huge drug operation, which controlled the flow of drugs across the US-Mexico border from Tijuana, inspired the Hollywood blockbuster, Traffic, starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Benecio Del Torro.

Journalists were shown photographs of Sanchez Arellano in a green soccer jersey and with his cheeks painted with green, white and red, the colors of the Mexican flag.

He couldn't celebrate Mexico's 3 -1 victory over Croatia because he was arrested by soldiers before the game ended.

Founded in the 1980s by Arellano's uncle, Benjamin Arellano Felix, the organisation viturally conrtolled Mexico to US drug-trafficking channels in the 1990s.

He inherited leadership of the cartel from his other uncle, Javier Arellano Felix, who was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard off Mexico's Baja California in 2006. He was later sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.

Two years after his uncle was captured a renegade lieutenant, Teodoro Garcia Simental, made a power play and set up his own operation.

It prompted a bloodbath that turned Tijuana into one of Mexico's most violent cities, plagued by daytime shootouts, beheadings and mutilated corpses hanging from freeway bridges. 

Soldiers capture alleged Tijuana cartel leader

Flag: Images of Sanchez Arellano wearing Mexico's colours were shown to the media after his capture

Sanchez Arellano was badly weakened after his rival was arrested in 2010, which created an opening for the Sinaloa cartel to quietly gain control of Tijuana's underworld and its coveted smuggling corridor to San Diego.

The Sinaloa cartel has made its mark in the area with cross-border drug tunnels, large-scale smuggling of methamphetamine at San Diego border crossings and marijuana-laden boats that motor up the Pacific coast to California.

In 2013, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration included Sanchez Arellano on a poster of the six most influential drug traffickers in that region but U.S. authorities were more concerned about rising Sinaloa cartel lieutenants.

Gary Hill, an assistant DEA special agent in charge in San Diego, said in an interview at the time that Sanchez Arellano was 'almost like a ghost.' 

Transformations: A collection of images released by Mexico's Attorney General show the cartel leader's different appearances during his career

'As we see it, the Sinaloa cartel has the upper hand,' Hill said.

Mexican authorities have tried several times to grab drug traffickers when they had their guard down while attending parties but it hasn't always worked.

In 2009, federal forces raided a party in the central state of Morelos attended by drug cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva, but he escaped. Marines cornered him days later at an apartment building in Cuernavaca, where he died in an hours-long shootout.

Rival drug traffickers also have taken advantage of parties to go after enemies. Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, the eldest brother of the Tijuana clan, was killed last October by a gunman dressed as a clown at a party in the resort city of Los Cabos.

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