Suspicion immediately fell on the Guadalajara cartel and its three principal figures: Gallardo, Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseca and Rafael Caro Quintero, all giants of the Mexican demimonde, subjects of corridos (ballads) and legends. The subsequent manhunt for the killers was called the largest in DEA history.
The bodies of Camarena and Zavala were found, a month after their February 1985 disappearances, near a ranch in the western state of Michoacan. It was a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations perhaps unmatched until President Trump took office in January amid threats to build a border wall, slap a tariff on Mexican imports and carry out large-scale deportations of Mexican citizens in the U.S. Zavala, who was assisting Camarena in his undercover investigations, also disappeared. Camarena was kidnapped while walking along a street to meet his wife for lunch. Marine - was brazenly snatched in broad daylight in Guadalajara.
The official sentencing comes 32 years after Camarena - the DEA agent and former Calexico cop and U.S. Several more years of appeals are possible, authorities say, even though Gallardo has already served the bulk of his term. It is said to be one of the longest judicial proceedings in Mexican criminal history. authorities led Mexican authorities to arrest him.īut the kingpin’s case had dragged on for decades in Mexican tribunals amid a plethora of legal maneuvers and a court ruling throwing out a previous 40-year sentence against Gallardo.
Gallardo, now in his early 70s, has been in Mexican custody since 1989, when intense pressure from U.S. Even though Gallardo was arrested decades ago, the case made the news again this week when a Mexican federal court sentenced Gallardo to 37 years in prison for the murder of Camarena and a Mexican pilot, Alfredo Zavala.Īs part of Wednesday’s court decision, Gallardo also was ordered to make the equivalent of $1.18 million in reparation payments, presumably to the families of the victims. The fallout of Camarena’s murder - and the unraveling of Gallardo’s cartel - continues to be felt in Mexico to this day, influencing law enforcement, politics and how modern cartels operate. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, eventually led to the fall of Gallardo and his close associates and the splintering of their nationwide criminal network. The international outrage following the 1985 murder in Mexico of a U.S. The former street cop and bodyguard turned-drug kingpin counted police commanders and politicians among his protectors and supplicants.īut eventually, Gallardo went too far. He was known as “El Padrino” - the Godfather - and, as co-founder of the once-dominant Guadalajara drug cartel, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo reigned over Mexico’s multibillion-dollar narco-commerce with all the ruthlessness and aplomb of the fictional Don Corleone.
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