Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo , alias El Padrino , Jefe de jefes or cocaine czar (* 8. January 1946 in Culiacan , Sinaloa ) is a former Mexican drug boss and co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel , which in the 1980s the cocaine - smuggling in Mexico dominated.

Criminal career

Félix Gallardo joined the police force at the age of 17 and later became the bodyguard of Leopoldo Sánchez Celis , who was a PRI member and governor of Sinaloa (1963–1968).

From the 1960s, Félix Gallardo worked for Pedro Avilés Pérez , who was the first major drug lord in Sinaloa and the first Mexican drug dealer to use airplanes to smuggle marijuana and heroin into the United States. In its organization, Félix Gallardo was, among other things, responsible for agreements with important state officials. The Mexican Operation Condor from 1975 to 1977 led Félix Gallardo to move his headquarters to Guadalajara . On September 15, 1978 Avilés Pérez was killed in a shooting by the Mexican Federal Police . Félix Gallardo took over the reins of the organization, which until then had never had a defined identity and was on the verge of crumbling, and founded the Guadalajara cartel together with Ernesto Fonseca "Don Neto" Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero . Cocaine was transported to and from Mexico in close cooperation with the Honduran drug trafficker Juan Ramon Mata-Ballasteros, with distribution in the USA being carried out by the Colombian cartels. Although he was one of the most wanted drug lords at the time, he was able to move unmolested in Sinaloa during the tenure of President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988).

From 1984 Gallardo provided a new distribution model for cocaine. By coordinating various regionally operating drug dealers, he took care of the onward transport and import and distribution in the USA. In 1987 he decided to reorganize drug smuggling and at the same time renounce part of his power. With other drug dealers, he agreed to divide the plazas (drug routes or transhipment points) as follows:

• Tijuana : Arellano Félix Brothers (later Tijuana Cartel );
• Ciudad Juárez : Carrillo Fuentes family (later the Juárez cartel );
• State of Sonora : Miguel Caro Quintero;
• State of Tamaulipas : Juan García Abrego (later the Golf Cartel );
• State of Sinaloa : El Chapo and El Mayo (later the Sinaloa Cartel ).

Arrest and conviction

Gallardo was arrested without resistance by Guillermo González Calderoni in Guadalajara four months after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office on April 8, 1989 .

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, serving in Mexico's maximum security prison Altiplano ( Centro Federal de Readaptación Social Número 1 "Altiplano" ). In May 2009 Gatopardo magazine published excerpts from his autobiography .

Cultural reception

• In the television series El Chapo , Félix Gallardo is played by Ricardo Lorenzana .
• In the two seasons long Netflix series Narcos: Mexico , Diego Luna played the leading role.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Malcom Beith: El Chapo. Heyne, 2011, p. 75 ff.
2. ^ Peninsular Digital - Genealogía del Narcotráfico (1 de 5) - Primera generación: El inicio
3. ↑ Politico dossier - Al "Cochiloco" lo mataron los colombianos
4. ↑ Mexicans arrest top drug figure and 80 policemen. Retrieved October 3, 2012 . 
5. ^ Judith Ortiz: El Padrino speaks from the prison . Retrieved October 3, 2012 . 
6. ↑ Ioan Grillo: Autumn of the Capo: The Diary of a Drug Lord . Retrieved October 3, 2012 .