Gulf Cartel

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The Gulf Cartel was founded in the 1930s by Juan Nepomuceno Guerra, originally known as the Matamoros Cartel. It initially smuggled alcohol and other illegal goods into the U.S. during Prohibition. Once Prohibition ended, the group controlled gambling houses, prostitution rings, a car theft network, and other illegal smuggling. It grew significantly in the 1970s under the leadership of kingpin Juan García Ábrego. By the 1980s, García Ábrego began incorporating cocaine into operations and negotiated with the Cali Cartel to secure 50% of the shipment out of Colombia as payment for delivery, instead of the US$1,500 per kilogram they were previously receiving. This forced him to guarantee the product's arrival from Colombia to its destination, so he created warehouses along Mexico's northern border to preserve hundreds of tons of cocaine. Around 1994, it was estimated that the Gulf Cartel handled as much as 'one-third of all cocaine shipments' into the United States from the Cali Cartel suppliers. During the 1990s, the PGR estimated that the Gulf Cartel was 'worth over US$10 billion.'

In Their Own Story

García Ábrego's ties extended beyond Mexican government corruption and into the United States. With the arrest of one of his traffickers, Juan Antonio Ortiz, it became known the cartel would ship tons of cocaine in United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) buses between 1986 to 1990. The buses made great transportation, as Antonio Ortiz noted, since they were never stopped at the border. It also became known that García Ábrego had a 'special deal' with members of the Texas National Guard who would truck tons of cocaine and marijuana from South Texas to Houston for the cartel. An FBI agent named Claude de la O, in 1986, stated in testimony that he received over US$100,000 in bribes and had leaked information that could have endangered an FBI informant as well as Mexican journalists. García Ábrego was placed on the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted in 1995, the first drug trafficker to be on that list. On 14 January 1996, he was arrested outside a ranch in Monterrey, Nuevo León, and quickly extradited to the United States. He confessed to having 'ordered people murdered and tortured', bribed top Mexican officials, and smuggled tons of narcotics into the United States. García Ábrego was convicted for 22 counts of money laundering, drug possession and drug trafficking, and is currently serving 11 life terms in a maximum security prison in Colorado.

Reader's Guide

Following Ábrego's 1996 arrest, a power vacuum was left and several top members fought for leadership. Humberto García Ábrego, brother of Juan, tried to take the lead but ultimately failed. He was replaced by Óscar Malherbe de León and Raúl Valladares del Ángel, until their arrest a short time later. Hugo Baldomero Medina Garza, known as El Señor Padrino de los Tráilers, was one of the top officials of the cartel for more than 40 years, trafficking about 20 tons of cocaine to the United States each month. In November 2000, he was captured in Tampico, Tamaulipas. After Medina Garza's arrest, his cousin Adalberto Garza Dragustinovis was investigated for allegedly forming part of the Gulf Cartel. The next in line was Sergio Gómez alias El Checo, however, he was assassinated in April 1996 in Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas. After this, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén took control of the cartel in July 1999 after assassinating Salvador Gómez Herrera alias El Chava, co-leader of the Gulf Cartel and close friend of his, earning him the name Mata Amigos (Friend Killer).

Did You Know?

• The Gulf Cartel was originally known as the Matamoros Cartel when founded in the 1930s by Juan Nepomuceno Guerra.
• García Ábrego was the first drug trafficker to be placed on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list in 1995.
• The cartel shipped tons of cocaine in United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) buses between 1986 and 1990 because they were never stopped at the border.
• García Ábrego had a 'special deal' with members of the Texas National Guard who would truck tons of cocaine and marijuana from South Texas to Houston.
• Osiel Cárdenas Guillén earned the nickname 'Mata Amigos' (Friend Killer) after assassinating his close friend and co-leader Salvador Gómez Herrera in July 1999.