Mexico nabs wrong man, architect is not drug capo

Posted by: EndGame

Mexico nabs wrong man, architect is not drug capo - 07/12/05 11:48 AM

A man held for a week on suspicion of being the head of an infamous drug cartel will be released because DNA tests prove he is a law-abiding architect, Mexico said on Sunday.

Joaquin Romero Aparicio was arrested last weekend during a trip to a Mexico City shopping mall. He was suspected of being Vicente Carrillo, the notorious drug chief of the Juarez cartel on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Protected government witnesses had said Romero was Carrillo. But DNA tests showed he was not the criminal capo with a $5 million price tag on his head from the U.S. government.

"It was decided to lift the cautionary arrest order after the genetic test results, despite the two testimonies that identified him as Vicente Carrillo," the Attorney General's office said in a statement.

Carrillo, who has reportedly had extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance, is the brother of Amado Carrillo, whose own attempt at plastic surgery led to his death on the operating table in 1997.

Amado Carrillo was known as the "Lord of the Skies" for his iron-fisted control of air routes to smuggle cocaine and marijuana into the United States.

The government had said it had information linking Romero Aparicio with a Mexico City property owned by Amado Carrillo.

After the arrest, relatives of Romero Aparicio bombarded Mexican television and radio stations with calls, saying the government had the wrong man.

On Sunday officials said the only link between the architect and Carrillo's property was some maintenance work Romero Aparicio had done there several years ago.